Creature Feature

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Creature Feature

Back in February 2016, Hollywood stars and
big-screen monsters descended upon Santa Rosa’s Roxy Stadium 14 Cinemas for the inaugural Silver Scream Festival.

The brainchild of Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Phil Kim and Santa Rosa Entertainment Group VP and CULT film series founder Neil Pearlmutter, that first incarnation of Silver Scream featured guests like director John Landis and actor Robert Englund, aka Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street, and welcomed close to a thousand attendees in its three-day run.

“We loved the fest,” says Kim, who purchased the genre-film magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland in 2007, revived it in print form and recently moved the company’s offices from Los Angeles to Sonoma County, where he lives with his family.

“The way everything went off, how receptive the attendees were and how pleasant all the guests were, I was very happy in that regard,” says Pearlmutter, whose CULT series regularly screens double features of classic horror and sci-fi films in Santa Rosa and occasionally features Q&As with guests like actor Robert Forster and director William Lustig.

After taking a hiatus in 2017 to retool the event, Kim and Pearlmutter will host another monstrously fun weekend of horror films and convention-style excitement when the Silver Scream Festival returns to the Roxy Stadium 14 in Santa Rosa on Feb. 16–18.

The three-day monster mash will gather several generations of scary movies, celebrity guests and the best in up-and-coming genre filmmakers, and will also include special VIP events to raise funds for North Bay wildfire victims.

OUT OF CHAOS

Twenty seventeen was a devastating year for the North Bay, and Phil Kim experienced the horror of last October’s wildfires at his doorstep.

Kim was working and staying in San Francisco, finishing contracts for the massive Famous Monsters Halloween Convention that was set to take place in San Jose at the end of October, when he got a call from a Famous Monsters employee in the middle of the night on Oct. 8 that Santa Rosa was burning. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he says.

Driving back to the North Bay that night, Kim had just enough time to return to his home in the Bennett Valley neighborhood of Santa Rosa, gather his family and evacuate as the skies burned orange in the night sky,

“It was like looking at Mordor,” says Kim, making a Lord of the Rings reference without batting an eye.

As the fires grew over the following week, Kim didn’t know if he would even have a home to come back to, and the Famous Monsters offices in Petaluma were covered in ash. He decided then to cancel the Halloween convention. It was one of the toughest decisions of his life, he says

The fires reached Kim’s subdivision in Bennett Valley, but firefighters were able to keep the flames at bay and his home was spared. Moving ahead, Kim and Pearlmutter were determined to keep the Silver Scream Festival on track, for themselves as much as the film fans in the North Bay. “This fire woke me up to the fact that everything needs to be done with purpose and quality, and we need to give back,” says Kim. “We’re very committed to Sonoma County.”

HEROINES OF HORROR

Perhaps the biggest highlight of this year’s Silver Scream festival is the scheduled Heroines of Horror panel, which gathers beloved veteran horror and sci-fi actresses Dee Wallace, Barbara Crampton and Kelli Maroney for screenings of their best films and conversations about their eclectic careers. Just don’t call them scream queens. (Update: Actress Suzanne Synder has replaced Dee Wallace. Snyder will appear in the panel event and for a Q&A following the screening of her film Killer Klowns From Outer Space)

“When I think of a scream queen, I think of a victim, the biggest victim out there,” says Kim. “But these ladies were not victims. For me these women represented a true feminism in film, they were beautiful and they could take care of business.”

“It was a brilliant idea of Neil’s to do a Heroines of Horror event,” Kim continues. “I would say it’s perfect timing, but he has been talking about doing it from year one. It’s just that now we are in an era of awareness.”

Headlines the last several months have been rightly dominated by the #MeToo and #TimesUp social media movements that began after sexual misconduct allegations were made against film producer Harvey Weinstein, and which are now shining a spotlight on women facing sexual assault and harassment in the workplace.

“It will be interesting to see how that awareness globally translates locally to the festival,” says Kim.

All three actresses on the upcoming panel made their names in genre films of the 1980s, and through their work, they advanced the notion of what it means to be a woman in a horror film.

Dee Wallace is best known to general movie-going audiences as mom in Steven Spielberg’s E.T.

“It’s going to follow me to the grave, babe,” laughs Wallace in an interview.

Also known to horror fans for her work in films like The Howling and The Hills Have Eyes, Wallace will be on hand for a screening of 1983’s Cujo, based on the Stephen King novel and filmed partially in Sonoma and Mendocino counties, in which she plays a mother determined to protect her young son from a rabid St. Bernard dog.

Wallace never planned on becoming a horror icon. “I knew from the get-go that I loved doing film and I loved doing emotional roller-coaster rides, and the horror genre lends itself to that,” she says.

In addition to acting in film and television, Wallace has also created a consciousness healing practice, authoring books and offering private sessions in which she directs clients to manifest positive emotions and mental focus. In that vein, she credits her mix of emotional vulnerability and strength with her success in Hollywood.

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“I come by that, quite honestly, from my mom,” says Wallace. “She was literally my first acting teacher, but my father was an alcoholic so she worked full-time, held down the house and was the pillar of the family. There was this beautiful embracement of the human condition, where you can be vulnerable, strong, frightening and emotionally available all at the same time.”

Barbara Crampton landed her first horror film role as Megan Halsey in 1985’s Re-Animator, based on a story by horror author H. P. Lovecraft. “Work in horror movies was not something I was chasing, it sort of landed in my lap,” says Crampton. “I was the second person to get the part of Meg in Re-Animator because the first girl dropped out after her mother read the script.”

Indeed, the film’s story of a medical student and his girlfriend partaking in bizarre experiments involving reanimating the dead is filled with gore galore, though her follow-up film, 1986’s From Beyond, also based on a Lovecraft story and featureing shape-shifting interdimensional beings feeding off humans’ brains, takes the cake for sheer insanity. Crampton will offer colorful commentary on From Beyond when it screens at the Silver Scream Festival.

Despite those early films’ notoriety, Crampton never considered herself a horror-movie icon until the last decade. “I hadn’t worked in a while, and someone asked me to be in a movie [2011’s You’re Next] because of my supposed cult status—and I say ‘supposed’ very emphatically—and I realized I belonged to a club that I didn’t know I belonged to,” says Crampton.

After the success of You’re Next, Crampton re-dedicated herself to working in films, especially in the horror genre, and she has acted in nearly 10 films in the last five years. “I feel really lucky and fortunate that I’m working with a lot of young filmmakers today who grew up watching my movies,” says Crampton. “It’s really nice to feel embraced by the new horror community.”

In 2016, Crampton made headlines in this community when she penned an editorial on the website Birth.Movies.Death titled “Don’t Call Me a Scream Queen,” that broke down why she felt that the label was a limiting and outdated term.

“Women are today given a lot more to do in movies,” says Crampton. “I think putting somebody in a category and reducing them to some sort of terminology is just not favorable to the kind of work a lot of actresses are doing out there. We’re doing a lot more interesting work now. I think it’s time to move on from that.”

Kelli Maroney echoes that sentiment. “Now what they call my characters is a ‘final girl,'” says Maroney, referring to her performances in films like 1986’s Chopping Mall, in which she not only survives but also defeats her pursuers while spouting awesome one-liners. “Well, in the olden days, we used to call that the ‘star of the movie,'” she laughs. “But, OK, we’ll go with ‘final girl.'”

Maroney will be on hand for a screening of the 1984 valley girls-versus-zombies cult classic Night of the Comet.

“I’m right there with Barbara regarding that article,” says Maroney. “She wrote it first, but we were all thinking the same thing and she just laid it out and did a brilliant job with it.”

“There are some wonderful actresses out there, and it’s not everybody that can pull this thing off.” The term “scream queen,” says Maroney, “is just dismissive of people’s craft and talent and ability to get where they are.”

LEGACY MONSTERS & THE NEW SCHOOL OF HORROR

The Silver Scream Festival’s other highlights include several legacy horror stars on hand to present special screenings of their most famous films.

First up, celebrated stuntman, actor and director Ricou Browning, best known for portraying the Gill-man in the Creature from the Black Lagoon movies of the 1950s, appears for a screening of the original film.

“If you want to live a long, healthy life, become a diver,” says Kim, referring to the 87-year-old Browning, who also created the 1960s television series Flipper and who worked as recently as 2010 on marine stunts for Boardwalk Empire.

Browning’s Gill-man is one of cinema’s most enduring monsters and served as a clear inspiration for the creature in director Guillermo del Toro’s recent Academy Award–nominated feature The Shape of Water. Del Toro’s love of Famous Monsters of Filmland is well documented in interviews.

Also slated to appear is screenwriter and director John Russo, who is on hand to present a screening of the iconic zombie feature Night of the Living Dead, which he co-wrote with director George Romero.

“Of course, Romero is one of the greatest horror directors of all time, but John really wrote about half of that script with Romero,” says Kim. “They wrote the script almost as they were filming, and John had to come up with what became the zombie movement, and he deserves a lot of credit for that.”

Recently restored by archivists at the Criterion Collection, Night of the Living Dead is marking its 50th anniversary this year, and the new Criterion print will be shown at the festival.

In addition to the hoary horror icons, Silver Scream is also hosting up-and-coming figures in the genre. The festival’s opening-night film, Living Among Us, is a new take on the vampire trope written and directed by fast-rising Asian-American auteur Brian Metcalf, who will present the film along with several members of the cast on Feb. 16.

Another soon-to-be household name in horror scheduled to appear is 21-year-old self-taught special-effects makeup artist Ellinor Rosander, who has amassed nearly a million followers on YouTube with her gory makeup tutorial videos produced with photographer Macs Moser under the moniker ElliMacs sfx.

“We’re hoping that Silver Scream is groundbreaking in the sense of showcasing the next generation of creative quality that bigger shows don’t usually touch,” says Kim.

All of these guests will be on hand for Silver Scream’s VIP dinner at the Flamingo Resort in Santa Rosa on Feb. 17. That event will feature gourmet food, live entertainment and a chance to mingle with the stars of the festival, and proceeds from that event will go to Sonoma County fire-relief efforts.

“People in the rest of the world may have moved on, but for us in this region, it’s several years before we go back to normal,” says Kim. “It’s important for us to give back.”

“Everything that I do, and Phil is likewise, is for the people of this area,” says Pearlmutter. “With this festival, I want to keep giving something to this county and this city that is going to make people happy.”

RIP Dennis Peron

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RIP Dennis Peron

As the death of Bay Area medical cannabis legend Dennis Peron started circulating earlier this week, it was hard to not sit with the powerful irony of the moment.

Peron, who died of lung cancer last week at age 72, is universally credited for giving rise to Proposition 215, the landmark California initiative that started it all insofar as sane and humane cannabis policies are concerned.

Peron’s death on Jan. 27 earned him a position of high martyrdom in the annals of American cannabis policy and general decency. And given the recent push by United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions to undo any and all progress that’s been made on the cannabis front, Peron’s death is all the more poignant for its timing.

Peron was a gay man from Long Island, N.Y., who served his country in Vietnam and who died last week at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. The rub on Peron, a former Yippie, is that while he opposed Proposition 64 in 2016, he did so out of a conviction that all marijuana use is ultimately medical.

Peron’s friendship with the late San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk—a fellow Long Islander—and his relentless and illegal cannabis advocacy on behalf of AIDS patients during the horrible height of the plague, only adds to the legend, the stature and the heft of his life’s work. According to the Wikipedia biography on him, Peron lost his partner to the disease.

Peron ran for California governor on the Republican ticket in 1998, against his nemesis, former Attorney General Dan Lungren, who as the wiki bio recounts, had moved to shut down cannabis storefronts Peron operated for AIDS patients in the Castro.

Democrat Gray Davis won that election and was followed in the office by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004. Sebastopol cannabis lawyer Omar Figueroa posted a letter on Facebook Tuesday that the former governor sent Peron in 2004, thanking him for sending postcards “commemorating the fight for the legalization of marijuana.”

The Ahhnold letter reminds us that there are a lot of compassionate conservatives out there, and we need to start smoking them out. And in a kinder, gentler America that embraces cannabis, Dennis Peron would, like the martyred Milk before him, find himself honored on a United States postage stamp. Maybe there’s still time for that.

Tom Gogola is news editor of the ‘Bohemian.’

A Vine Mess

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A Vine Mess

A June ballot initiative that would limit removal of oak trees for new vineyards has exposed rifts within Napa County’s wine industry.

The Watershed and Oak Woodland Protection Initiative would cap oak removal from hillsides in an effort supporters say is designed to preserve remaining hillside habitat and protect fragile watersheds.

Supporters submitted more than 7,000 signatures to the county elections office last month. Only 3,800 signatures were required to qualify it for the ballot. County election officials certified the signatures earlier this month. Among other things, the measure would cap future oak-forest removal for new vineyards at 795 acres.

This is the legislation’s second time around, albeit in a different form. It was on the ballot in June 2016, but the county invalidated it before election day because of a technicality. At that time, the county’s wine and agricultural industry organizations presented a united front against the initiative, a measure they claimed was unnecessary given the regulations winegrowers already face.

A number of those groups—the Napa County Farm Bureau, the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and the Winegrowers of Napa Valley—all oppose the proposed legislation this time around too. But in the case of the powerful Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) trade group, their opposition constitutes an about-face that is rankling winemakers inside the member-based organization and out.

Last year, initiative organizer Mike Hackett got a cold call from NVV government relations director Rex Stults who said he wanted to discuss possible collaboration. Hackett says he was skeptical about the overture, but says Stults reached out to him because polls revealed the measure would likely pass.

“That really shook them up,”
he says.

A small group from the NVV, which included former board chair Michael Honig, met over lunch with Hackett and his co-organizer Jim Wilson.

“It was cordial,” says Hackett.

The group continued to meet over the next seven months and agreed to compromise on the proposed streamside setbacks and settled on the 795-acre cap. This unlikely meeting between wine industry and environmental activists bore fruit. In September, the NVV board voted unanimously to support the initiative. The Napa County Board of Supervisors praised the bipartisan compromise.

But the good feelings didn’t
last long.

When the greater membership of the 500-member NVV and Napa’s other wine and agriculture industry groups learned of the proposed legislation the two sides hammered out, the pushback was loud and often vitriolic, says Honig.

“I was surprised how angry people got,” he says. “When the board saw what the pushback was, they got nervous.”

A few weeks later, the NVV board voted to suspend its support for the very legislation it helped write. On Jan. 11, the board voted unanimously to oppose the initiative. In a statement, the organization said its opposition is based on the sentiments of a majority of its members and their belief that the initiative is “legally uncertain” and fear of “unintended consequences for agriculture if it becomes law.”

“The NVV believes the initiative is not the proper way to further the goal of protecting Napa County’s woodlands and watershed,” the statement said.

Napa Valley Vintners communications director Patsy McGaughy would not provide further explanation or say what is the proper way to protect woodland and watershed areas. Stults would not comment. It’s not clear whether the NVV will actively campaign against the initiative.

As the compromise heads to the polls, a group of winemakers, some of whom are members of the NVV, are banding together in support of the initiative. Among them is famed vintner and NVV member Warren Winiarski.

In 1976, a bottle of Winiarski’s first vintage of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon placed first among French and California red wines at the legendary Judgment of Paris tasting. But in his support for the ballot initiative, Winiarski recalls another key date in the Napa Valley.

“This initiative will support the work I was involved in back in 1968,” he says, referring to the creation of the county’s historic agricultural preserve, an ordinance widely touted for keeping housing development pressure at bay and allowing the wine industry to thrive. “It’s strengthening something that needs strengthening.”

The agricultural preserve marks it 50th anniversary this year, an event both sides of the debate are citing to make their case.

Winiarski and his winemaker allies say now Napa Valley needs protection from wineries and vineyards which they say are exploiting their status in the agricultural preserve at the expense of water quality, biodiversity and the carbon capturing potential of trees.

Were the initiative to fail, says Winiarski, “it would have quite a negative impact on the totality of what this valley is about.”

Winemaker Randy Dunn, who is not a NVV member, is also joining the effort in support of the initiative.

“We’ve got to save what we’ve got left,” he says, rejecting the charge that the initiative is anti-agriculture.

“Some people are dumb enough to think if we don’t keep planting grapes we’ll end up like Santa Clara County. It’s not going to make any winemakers go bankrupt.”

Hackett says that while the wine industry is divided, he believes support for the measure is strong.

“We have wide community support, and we’re going to win this.”

In spite of his advisory status on the NVV board, which is now chaired by Opus One Winery CEO David Pearson, Honig says he’s going to vote for the initiative. While he says many of his winemaker colleagues have legitimate concerns about it, he doesn’t think it
will have the devastating impact some critics fear, and there are more pressing issues to be concerned with.

“This [issue] is just a blip,”
he says.

He says his goal in reaching out to the authors of the initiative was to improve on the 2016 version and make it more palatable to the wine industry since it was headed for the ballot again.

“I believe we achieved that,” he says. “I’m not frustrated with the product, but I’m frustrated with all the angst within my industry.”

But now it’s up to voters.

“That’s what democracy is about,” saus Honig

Choir on Fire

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Choir on Fire

The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir’s Terrance Kelly isn’t coming to Sonoma County this week to save souls per se—but the choir’s artistic director says he hopes to lift some local hearts in a region reeling from the October fires.

Formed in 1985, the OIGC is a multicultural choir that draws from persons of all races and faith—or of no faith—to deliver a one-love message that’s powered by slave songs and gospel music. The choir performs at the Green Music Center on Feb. 1.

They’ve come off tour recently with the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus, one of whose members lost a home to the fires. Kelly vividly recalls the moment. “There were 287 gay men’s chorus members and around 47 of us. When this guy found out he lost his home, everyone was crying. We asked him, ‘Do you need an emergency flight home?’ He said, ‘No thanks.’ We stayed out and finished the tour.”

In a divided America oversensitized to questions around identity politics and cultural appropriation, the OIGC provides a bracing and uplifting rejoinder that’s set in the granite of authenticity. Kelly is not so nearly concerned with questions of appropriation, he says, as he is with his choir singing the black gospel the way it’s supposed to be sung. “We don’t take it and make it something else,” he says.

Kelly has heard from many older, black audience members who come to him after OIGC performances, amazed at the fidelity of the encounter with music forged in human suffering. “When we get that response,” says Kelly, “we know we are singing authentically.”

We’re living in trying times, says OIGC executive director Mark DeSaulnier—all the more reason to get on the good foot with Jesus, or at least the music sung in his name and created in the crucible of slavery. The administration in Washington, he says, “has created divisions, so to speak, of inclusion—no matter your skin color, socioeconomic situation, no matter your sexual orientation, we can stand together and we can celebrate our differences.”

The beaming, belt-it-out authenticity on display at the OIGC springs in part from a sense of shared pain that’s not the provenance of one or another faith or group of people, says DeSaulnier.

“One of the core messages in black gospels and spirituals,” he says, “which is relatable at any given point, is that we all have adversity and hardship. And people want to be reminded of that. They want to be in a community that lives it out.”

Correction: An earlier version inaccurately reported that OIGC was founded in 2013. That’s the year the choir formed a new community choir.

A Writer’s Trip

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A Writer’s Trip

Writer Michael Pollan’s interests
are getting smaller—but infinitely more expansive.

Best known for his writing on food and sustainable agriculture, Pollan began his career as a gardening writer with his acclaimed Botany of Desire in 2001. He struck literary gold again with The Omnivore’s Dilemma in 2006.

His latest work, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, is due out May 15 and may seem like a departure for a man the New York Times‘ called the “designated repository for the nation’s food conscience.” But Pollan says his latest inquiry follows a certain logic he’s traced over his career.

“There is an organic progression from one subject to the other,” he says. “To me, it’s been about our engagement with other species and nature in general, but I tend to be more interested in how we interact with nature instead of simply observing it. Being in nature is a reciprocal activity.”

Pollan says food is an important part of that reciprocal relationship, but so is the universal quest for altered states of consciousness, something every culture except the Inuit share. Powerful substances in the minds of people is one way cultures evolve, he says. “I don’t think we necessarily think about that as our relationship with nature, but I think it is.”

Pollan says immersion in his subjects and writing about them is another hallmark of his work. That’s no exception in his latest book. That’s right. He dropped acid and writes about it.

Pollan says he missed out on LSD in college, but he has long had an interest in altered states of consciousness, and he became intrigued by medical research in the United States and elsewhere to study the effects of LSD and psilocybin on depression, addiction and other disorders.

Given the promising results, Pollan says that within the next five years these drugs “may enter the toolkit” of mental-health therapists. “Social change comes very quickly to this country sometimes,” he says, pointing to gay marriage and the legalization of cannabis.

On a personal level, Pollan says as he approached his 60th birthday he became open to the idea that psychedelics could expand his consciousness and free up ingrained patterns of thought and behavior.

“I started talking to people who had these experience in clinical trials and became very interested in how people’s worldviews actually shifted in the course of a single experience. I was at point in life where I was open to that.”

In the end, he says researching the book was the most interesting experience he’s had as a writer, and the most challenging.

Power Down

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Power Down

“There are far more areas ready to burn in Sonoma County than that burned,” says Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore. “And there are far more communities that are more in harm’s way than Coffey Park ever was.”

That’s scary talk coming from the Fourth District supervisor and freshly minted board president. Gauging from Cal Fire fire-burn maps, it’s clear that Windsor, which Gore represents, may have dodged a flaming bullet in October.

In the “new normal,” what’s being done to prevent or mitigate against future North Bay fires?

Lots, says State Sen. Bill Dodd, who represents Napa County and parts of Sonoma that got scorched. Dodd was evacuated, and a number of his neighbors, he says, lost their homes to October’s firestorm.

The North Bay legislative team in Sacramento has been doing yeoman’s work since the fires, issuing bills that grapple with an “ember alert” early-warning system, fire-insurance and property tax revenue relief to municipalities dealing with a cratered tax base.

And last week Dodd was in Santa Rosa with others from the delegation—Rep. Jim Wood, Sen. Marc Levine—to talk up SB 894, the “downed power line bill,” says Dodd, which offers the most tangible antidote to any future wildfire that may burden the region.

The bill would require utilities such as PG&E to turn off the power when weather conditions reach a critical mass of high temperature, low humidity and high wind.

For more on this go to Bohemian.com.—Tom Gogola

Go Ask Ag

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Go Ask Ag

In November, the state moved to lift acreage limits in place to protect small-time, legacy pot growers as part of the Proposition 64 rollout. The late-game maneuver at the California Department of Food and Agriculture prompted a lawsuit last week by the California Growers Association.

The suit, filed in state Superior Court, charges that the CDFA’s lifting of one-acre grow limits that were to be in place through 2023 is contrary to what voters agreed to when they passed Proposition 64 in 2016.

Attorney Patrick Soluri represents the California Growers Association (CGA) in the suit. In an email, he laid out his legal argument, noting that the goals of the Adult Use of Marijuana Act, and the pot omnibus law MAUCRSA (the Medical and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act), “was to bring existing small operations out of the shadows so that they could contribute tax revenue and comply with environmental laws.”

The rescission hinges on an argument offered by large-scale growers that smaller operators weren’t going to survive new regulatory costs associated with MAUCSRA. Steve D’Angelo of Oakland’s Harborside dispensary made that argument to the Sacramento Bee when the lawsuit was filed. “[T]here is no reasonable debate,” says Soluri, “that larger cultivation operations can easier absorb increased regulatory cost of compliance than smaller operations.”

Soluri cites the CDFA’s economic impact analysis of the five-year carve-out. Without the protection, Soluri notes, “as California voters intended, these existing small operations will simply not even attempt to become legal.”

This was the concern expressed by North Bay lawmakers who represent legacy growers, such as Healdsburg State Sen. Mike McGuire. Now, as Soluri notes, California risks having two cannabis markets, “a legal market comprised of large, corporate agri-business and an illegal market of small operators.”

McGuire did not reply to requests for comment.

The CGA’s executive director, Hezekiah Allen said every iteration of the legalization push and every regulatory analysis of its impacts, included the 2023 rule. He suspects pressure from state growers angling for a bigger piece of the cannabis pie drove the CFDA’s reversal.

CDFA spokesman Steve Lyle declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office says he has “not yet reviewed [the] lawsuit.”

Newsom headed up a blue-ribbon cannabis commission whose “Pathways Report: Policy Options for Regulating Marijuana in California,” released in July 2015, said the California legalization regime should “ensure that small and mid-size entities, especially responsible actors in the current market, have access to the new licensed market, and that the industry and regulatory system are not dominated by large, corporate interests.”

Letters to the Editor: January 31, 2017

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Letters to the Editor: January 31, 2017

Worthy Metal

My band, the Axiom Collapse, is on this compilation (“Gather the Horde,” Jan. 23). Sonoma County Metal and Hardcore has done so much for the local metal scene. It makes me have pride in our county to see how much the metal community has grown since Ernest Wuethrich started his promotion company. I hope to see a lot of new faces come to the local concerts to support all these bands and have a good time, like I always do. I encourage anyone who hasn’t seen or heard any of the bands on the CD to come check them out. It’s worth the money, trust me. And if metal isn’t your scene or you haven’t been to a metal show, give our county a chance. Every metal band in Sonoma County has talent and something to offer.

—Eric Lundgren

Via Bohemian.com

What’s to Be Gained?

With the number of states that have already moved to legalize cannabis, and the number of those that already have (both medically and recreationally), Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ move is extremely difficult to understand—and especially with the timing of his rescinding the Cole Memo (“Alabama Slammer,” Jan. 9). Why it’s difficult to understand is that it doesn’t seem to make sense and, in fact, defies making sense, since there’s nothing to be gained by it politically, legally or financially, and only much to be lost by it on all fronts. I may very well be completely lost and in the dark, but what am I missing here?

—JWC Dood

Via Bohemian.com

The Golden Goose Is Dead

Ignorance, incompetence and cupidity, and all those otherwise unfunded pensions, have led the state and county authorities to kill the golden goose—the cannabis community’s family cultivators and small makers. Their seven sets of arbitrary and capricious rule changes and secret deals to change public agreements have alienated everyone otherwise willing to participate in their game. No one can trust these people who are, for instance, trying to bluff us that Proposition 215 “sunsets.”

Their excesses have guaranteed a thriving black market. They will tell us we will no longer go to jail, but now they can take away our home with crushing civil infraction penalties, driving small players out of the county and underground.

There are thousands of people who would participate in a fair and just system but who can’t afford to play in a system designed to corporatize the whole grassroots economy. I call for our “leaders” to serve all their constituents instead of their corporate masters.

—Oaky Joe

Forestville

Write to us at le*****@******an.com.

Federal Communications Commission Votes on New Rules for Early-Warning Systems

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The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules today to “improve the geographic targeting of Wireless Emergency Alerts,” which deliver warnings and information to the public via their cellphones during an emergency. According to a release from the FCC (see below), wireless provides will be required to “deliver WEA alerts in a more geographically precise manner so that the alerts reach the communities impacted by an emergency without disturbing others.”

The new rule goes into effect on Nov. 30, 2019—or, two fire seasons from now.

The move dovetails with state-level action on the WEA front that’s being driven by the North Bay delegation to Sacramento, via Senate Bill 833. 

The bill sets out to “provide for a red alert system designed to issue and coordinate alerts following an evacuation order,” according to the legislative legal counsel’s memo on it.

It would require the state Office of Emergency Services  to set up a red alert system that would “incorporate a variety of notification resources and developing technologies that may be tailored to the circumstances and geography of the underlying evacuation, as appropriate.”

The bill would require a local government agency or state agency that uses the federal system “to alert a specified area of an evacuation order to use the term ‘red alert’ in the alert and notify OES of the alert.”

The legislative analysis notes that “the WEA system allows customers who own certain wireless telephones and other enabled mobile devices to receive geographically targeted, text-like messages alerting them of imminent threats to safety in their area. The WEA system was established in 2008 pursuant to the federal Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act and became operational in 2012. Since then, over 21,000 WEA alerts have been issued.”

The WEA was not activated to send evacuation alerts during the North Bay fires. It did recently send out an errant notification that Hawaii was about to get nuked. Whoops.

SB 833 bill would require the OES to “both ensure that each emergency management office within a county or city is a registered WEA operator and has up-to-date WEA software and equipment,” by July 2019. “The bill also would require OES to ensure that emergency management personnel trained on the WEA system receive yearly training in WEA software and equipment operation.” The state would appropriate funds to implement the provisions of the bill in localities around California.

“If this is the new normal,” says State Sen. Bill Dodd, a sponsor of SB 833, “then we’d better get it together.”

Dodd says he’s open to other low-tech systems to warn residents of imminent danger, such as air-raid sirens, but that given the lumpy topography in the North Bay, “I’m not sure that is good for every area. Brand new-technology doesn’t have to be the answer in every case, and not every county is going to have the same standards. We have to think about air-raid sirens,” he adds, noting that its up to localities to pick and choose between hi- and low-tech options “to create the most sustainable and dynamic emergency alert system.”

A report in Monday’s Press Democrat by Julie Johnson focused on a meeting yesterday between the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and county emergency services chief Christopher Helgren. As Johnson reported, Helgren reiterated to the BOS that his office didn’t activate the federal WEA system out of a concern that it could create panic because the system, as currently deployed, sends out messages “too broadly.”

The FCC vote today would require that wireless providers send targeted messages to areas under siege from various disasters, be they floods, fires, earthquakes or tsunamis. During the North Bay fires, SoCoAlert and Nixle did provide emergency information to people who had opted-in to those programs, which require a cellphone. Dodd says those systems “have been solid in the past,” but the time’s come for an opt-out system that’s uniform across the state. “If you don’t want to be notified of a major disaster,” he says, “that’s your business.”

As for those air-raid sirens, Helgren’s apparently not a fan. Johnson reported that “Supervisors pushed back when Helgren said he had already ruled out warning systems such as neighborhood sirens, sending a strong signal they and the public want the opportunity to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of warning systems such as neighborhood sirens.”

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Making a Scene

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Making a Scene

Downtown Santa Rosa’s ho-hum dining scene is about to get a jolt of new energy with the opening of not one but six new restaurants.

There are three eateries opening on Fourth Street within shouting distance of each other. Going into the space vacated by La Bufa Mexican Restaurant is the Parish Cafe, a southerly outpost of the Healdsburg-based, New Orleans–style restaurant. Look for po’ boys, gumbo, muffaletta sandwiches and beignets. Opening is planned in the next six weeks.

Next door in the corner space occupied by the short-lived Persona pizzeria will be the home of Gerard’s Paella, a staple at the Occidental farmers market and street fairs all over the North Bay and beyond. Look for the classic Valencian rice dish, of course, but also seasonally inspired tapas. Gerard’s should open in March. On the next block is the Jade Room, a wine bar and “oysterette” being created by the folks behind Sift Dessert Bar. Opening is set for March.

Andrea Ballus, CEO and founder of Sift and the woman behind Jade, says the restaurant will offer oysters, cheese and charcuterie plates, poke salad and other small-plate items. She hopes the coming restaurant boom will breathe life into downtown Santa Rosa’s dining landscape.

“It’s a little renaissance, and it’s exciting to watch,” says Ballus. “I feel a huge commitment to help downtown become the hub of the city.”

While there are lunch options downtown, Ballus says the dinner choices for a fun night out are few. “I feel like there’s been a hole in the market for date night. I’m tired of waiting for it to happen.”

Overlooking Old Courthouse Square, Vertice will offer Peruvian tapas and cocktails, and next door, Perch and Plow will serve “seasonal California fresh comfort food” cooked by executive chef Michael Mullins. Perch and Plow held a well-received sneak peek last week and plans to open Feb. 1.

“We’re so excited to be part of this restaurant boom and revival,” says Avery Patentreger, Perch and Plow’s general manager.

The nearby County Bench, which closed last year after failing to spark much interest, will be reborn as Indian Food and Social Club.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see who takes over the spot on Fifth Street recently vacated by Gary Chu’s, a downtown mainstay for 33 years until it closed last May.

These planned openings come on the heels of Acre Coffee’s debut late last year on Fourth Street, a locally based cafe that’s giving nearby Peet’s and Starbuck’s a run for their cappuccinos, and 2 Tread Brewery at the Santa Rosa Plaza. The brewpub, which also opened last year, recently announced it’s going to start featuring live music.

Creature Feature

Back in February 2016, Hollywood stars and big-screen monsters descended upon Santa Rosa's Roxy Stadium 14 Cinemas for the inaugural Silver Scream Festival. The brainchild of Famous Monsters of Filmland publisher Phil Kim and Santa Rosa Entertainment Group VP and CULT film series founder Neil Pearlmutter, that first incarnation of Silver Scream featured guests like director John Landis and actor...
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RIP Dennis Peron

As the death of Bay Area medical cannabis legend Dennis Peron started circulating earlier this week, it was hard to not sit with the powerful irony of the moment. Peron, who died of lung cancer last week at age 72, is universally credited for giving rise to Proposition 215, the landmark California initiative that started it all insofar as sane...
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A Vine Mess

A June ballot initiative that would limit removal of oak trees for new vineyards has exposed rifts within Napa County's wine industry. The Watershed and Oak Woodland Protection Initiative would cap oak removal from hillsides in an effort supporters say is designed to preserve remaining hillside habitat and protect fragile watersheds. Supporters submitted more than 7,000 signatures to the county elections...
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Choir on Fire

The Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir's Terrance Kelly isn't coming to Sonoma County this week to save souls per se—but the choir's artistic director says he hopes to lift some local hearts in a region reeling from the October fires. Formed in 1985, the OIGC is a multicultural choir that draws from persons of all races and faith—or of no faith—to...
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A Writer’s Trip

Writer Michael Pollan's interests are getting smaller—but infinitely more expansive. Best known for his writing on food and sustainable agriculture, Pollan began his career as a gardening writer with his acclaimed Botany of Desire in 2001. He struck literary gold again with The Omnivore's Dilemma in 2006. His latest work, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics...
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Power Down

"There are far more areas ready to burn in Sonoma County than that burned," says Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore. "And there are far more communities that are more in harm's way than Coffey Park ever was." That's scary talk coming from the Fourth District supervisor and freshly minted board president. Gauging from Cal Fire fire-burn maps, it's clear that...
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Go Ask Ag

In November, the state moved to lift acreage limits in place to protect small-time, legacy pot growers as part of the Proposition 64 rollout. The late-game maneuver at the California Department of Food and Agriculture prompted a lawsuit last week by the California Growers Association. The suit, filed in state Superior Court, charges that the CDFA's lifting of one-acre grow...
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Letters to the Editor: January 31, 2017

Worthy Metal My band, the Axiom Collapse, is on this compilation ("Gather the Horde," Jan. 23). Sonoma County Metal and Hardcore has done so much for the local metal scene. It makes me have pride in our county to see how much the metal community has grown since Ernest Wuethrich started his promotion company. I hope to see a lot...
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Federal Communications Commission Votes on New Rules for Early-Warning Systems

The Federal Communications Commission adopted new rules today to "improve the geographic targeting of Wireless Emergency Alerts," which deliver warnings and information to the public via their cellphones during an emergency. According to a release from the FCC (see below), wireless provides will be required to "deliver WEA alerts in a more geographically precise manner so that the alerts...
Read more

Making a Scene

Downtown Santa Rosa's ho-hum dining scene is about to get a jolt of new energy with the opening of not one but six new restaurants. There are three eateries opening on Fourth Street within shouting distance of each other. Going into the space vacated by La Bufa Mexican Restaurant is the Parish Cafe, a southerly outpost of the Healdsburg-based, New...
Read more
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