350 Revisited

Fifty-five is the New....Every thing old is new again.....Time is a New Page Turning...Each day new and different.

It's hard to write about what I want to write about today....somebody wants to take over the Co-Op's old Permit.  I am torn.  Torn between wanting the neighborhood to have a medical cannabis facility, the landlady to have a good, thriving business on her property and the opposite side of the coin....the new place wouldn't be functioning as the Co-Op. It wouldn't be housing the services, doing the community outreach and activism...quite simply, it wouldn't be the Co-Op.

To get anyone interested up to speed, The Co-Op was the San Francisco Patients' Cooperative and Medical Cannabis Community Center....it was opened from August 24,1999 through February 29, 2008.  The motto was Compassion, Hospitality and Service.

Nobody wanted to take over the permit while the place was open...oh, we got sort of an offer....on the very last night, one hour before we locked the doors for the last time.  It wasn't from anyone directly, and quite frankly it didn't seem to be the appropriate time or place and I wasn't willing to work through a third party. When they took me aside and made the offer I just shook my head "no."  I was not interest in money, I was only interested in keeping the place opened for the patients....functioning as they needed it.

After leaving the person in the front office I ran to the bathroom, got sick then cried my eyes out. Why on earth couldn't anyone understand? 

As time passed, the hope for reopening got dimmer and dimmer, until at last the Permit expired.
Or so I thought.

If the new establishment was going to function as described in the Permit documents that were accepted and approved by the City and County of San Francisco, then I'd have no argument with their claim to be the Co-Op.  After all, part of the Co-Op's function is to be a legacy...passed on to patients for patients.  But if the new establishment is not going to fulfill the mission statement of the Co-Op, then it is not the Co-Op and can not therefore be claiming to be the Co-Op.  It really is that simple.

Even before we closed back in 2008, patients were calling me, asking where, when and how we could re-open...they still do to this day.  When they ask if the new place is going to be like the old one, I can only say that I don't know.

So I'm torn...torn completely down the middle and my heart is breaking.  The Landlady deserves the best....and I finally got to meet with the guys opening the place and I know them. They're good people.
But they don't want to function like the original Co-Op.

I will not sleep tonight....

So what does Fifty-Five mean for today? 350 Revisited, I guess....and the hope that some day there really is a Medical Cannabis Patients' Community Center once again, only bigger and better.