Two of the diesel-fueled generators that have been supplying power to cannabis production facilities at East Oakland properties owned by Denver-based Green Sage. (Amaya Nicole Edwards/KQED)
The city of Oakland is warning the Colorado owners of a major cannabis production complex in East Oakland that they may face significant fines and criminal charges if they don’t quickly remove unpermitted diesel generators that have been running around the clock for more than a year to power the facility’s operations.
But with the city’s previous warnings to the company apparently going unheeded, frustrated residents of a historic live/work building that’s part of the cannabis complex are threatening to take action themselves to shut down the generators.
Residents of The Cannery building have raised alarms for the past 20 months about the industrial generators and the pollution they’re emitting in a part of Oakland that has long suffered from hazardous air quality due to proximity to Interstate 880 and factories in the area.
So far, the city has been unable to curb repeated building and fire code violations by Denver-based Green Sagethe firm that owns The Cannery and an adjacent building called The Tinnery.
The notice sent Monday to Green Sage and its owners — Ken Greer, 41, a former Massachusetts stockbroker, and Bruce Miller, 70, a real-estate agent with addresses in Los Angeles and Wyoming — gives the firm 30 days to stop using the seven generators currently operating at the San Leandro Street complex.
The threatened prosecution and other sanctions would add to the legal challenges facing Green Sage, whose Oakland operations have been entangled in more than two dozen lawsuits in state and federal courts in California, Colorado and Virginia.
Oakland City Councilmember Loren Taylor, who represents the district that includes the Green Sage properties, says the situation shows the city needs to move faster and have better enforcement mechanisms in place when confronted by “out of bounds” cannabis operators.
“While I am grateful that this notice of violation has been issued with clear timeframes for required remediation and clarity around the penalties for insufficient response, this is an example of how our system works too slowly for the needs of tenants who are forced to deal with unbearable conditions on a daily basis,” Taylor said in an email statement.
The company began installing generators at the complex in July 2020 after a PG&E transformer serving the buildings failed and a power line caught fire — apparently because of a sharp increase in power demand related to the cannabis operations. As many as nine generators have operated simultaneously at the site since then, with seven on site now.
The city alleges several violations of the state fire code and city ordinances, including operating the generators, using and storing diesel fuel without permits and exposing workers and residents at the complex to diesel fumes that pose “a grave risk to health and safety.”
The Monday notice says failure to stop using the generators by April 22 could result in the company having its property declared a public nuisance and being fined as much as $1,000 a day. The city also warned Green Sage that if it doesn’t comply, it could be referred to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for criminal prosecution of the alleged fire code violations.
The notice included 20 images of conditions at the two Green Sage properties, including two huge diesel generators stationed adjacent to the soot-blackened facade of one of the buildings.
Green Sage did not respond to an email seeking comment on the violation notice. In past statements to KQED, Greer has said he and Miller are “avid environmentalists” and that the generators are necessary because PG&E is unable to supply enough power to the facility’s energy-intensive cannabis growing and processing operations.
PG&E disputes that assertion.
Green Sage paid $20 million in 2016 and 2017 to buy the two San Leandro Street properties — The Tinnery, at 5601 San Leandro St., and The Cannery, at 5733 San Leandro.
The Cannery was not just any big brick building waiting for an out-of-town entrepreneur to turn it into a weed factory. It was one of Oakland’s first live/work artists’ communities and the long-time home of the celebrated abstract expressionist painter Arthur Monroe. He became the building’s first artist-tenant in the mid-1970s and lived there until his death in 2019 at age 84.
Deteriorating living conditions at the building since Green Sage acquired it — including the 24/7 diesel emissions from the unpermitted generators — have reduced the number of tenants in its 20 residential units from 32 to 10 over the last two years.
Cannery resident Alistair Monroe — the son of painter Arthur Monroe — and former building manager James Dawson have been leading efforts to get the city to respond to the generators and say it’s past time for decisive official action.
That led them to send an emailed ultimatum earlier this week to city officials giving them until Thursday afternoon to have the generators shut down.
“We are done asking nicely and are now demanding that the generators be shut down,” the email from Monroe and Dawson said, warning they would join with community supporters to shut down the generators themselves if the city didn’t act.
In an interview, Monroe and Dawson said they might be able to do that by blocking tanker trucks that each day deliver the thousands of gallons of diesel fuel the generators need to keep running.
Monroe said that the ultimatum remains in place despite the city’s new violation notice to Green Sage.
“We have NO FAITH that letter will resolve any issues with Green Sage,” Monroe said in an email after the city sent the notice of violation.
To Read The Rest Of This Article By Dan Brekke on KQED
Published: March 24, 2022
