Proposed restrictions on Arizona’s voter-approved medical marijuana law are worse than illegal, says one Valley doc — they’re “cruel and unreasonable.” Edgar Suter, a Mesa doctor of nuclear medicine, writes in an a lengthy call-to-arms today that the state Department of Health Services’ suggested rules concerning Proposition 203 probably violate the 1998 Voter Protection…
Hundreds of people called Maricopa County this year to complain about people violating restrictions on wood-burning. Despite the Valley’s ongoing problem with bad air, though, those calls resulted in almost no action by the county. The county’s Air Quality Department announced 11 no-burn days in 2010, and received 559 complaints based on…
One potential benefit of Proposition 203 could be a boost in local food banks, if Arizona pot dispensaries follow the lead of one California clinic. The Granny Purps marijuana dispensary in Soquel, California, has collected 11,000 pounds of food for a holiday charity drive in what the Santa Cruz Sentinel calls “a large…
The unprecedented claims filed against Maricopa County by its own top officials have raised fascinating and difficult questions about potential conflicts of interest. We’re not sure this makes it any less difficult: Steven LaMar, a Cave Creek town councilman, is one of the lawyers hired to represent county interests…
A $10 million lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley last Thursday against the county will likely end up in federal court. Lawsuits alleging abuse of power, defamation, civil rights violations and other injustices by Sheriff Joe Arpaio, former County Attorney Andrew Thomas that were filed by Stapley’s executive assistant,…
Cedric Ceballos, former player and in-arena emcee for the Phoenix Suns, was arrested and cited for a slew of driving violations on December 19 in Scottsdale. The former star player and celebrity was stopped at about 3 a.m. near North Scottsdale Road and East Royal Palm Road in Scottsdale, according…
Nobody can label the folks over at Maricopa County’s Air Quality Department a bunch of Scrooges. After a warning last week that no-burn days on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day would be enforced, exactly zero warnings and citations were issued, a county official says. Oddly, all this non-enforcement happened despite the…
Which is better, the Army or the Navy? Two Florence men argued bitterly over the question on Christmas Day, leading to a fight that ended with a shooting, authorities say. The incident began after Dustin Jakes, 27, invited his former roommate, David Provost, 24, over to his family’s home for…
Adam Ramsower isn’t the only 30-year-old who’s had to move back in with his folks during this ultra-marathon of a recession. But he’s the only one we’ve heard of who wanted to save up for his own place by gambling with money he’d stolen from a bank robbery. …
One of the weirdest details in news coverage of the weekend beating of State Legislator Frank Pratt, a Republican from Casa Grande, was that his stolen SUV was “state issued.” Several media outlets reported that detail, including the Arizona Republic, which stated: She noticed that his car, a state-issued gold…
A couple of Phoenix strip clubs turned into war zones over the Christmas weekend as homicidal gunmen shot up the joints in two separate attacks. A bouncer and club patron at Great Alaskan Bush Company, 2900 Northwest Grand Avenue, were killed in Sunday night’s attack by an as-of-yet unnamed suspect,…
Despite the efforts of anti-Arizonans like Congressman Raul Grivalva, a boycott against the state this year appears to have failed miserably. Grivalva was among the critics of Arizona’s harsh immigration law, SB1070, who called for the boycott. City councils across the country passed toothless resolutions in favor of boycotting the Grand Canyon State,…
About 1,000 victims who lost money back in the 1980s to Sherman Unkefer, the former head of a major precious metals firm in Phoenix, will be sought for possible restitution of $7.5 million. The case was remanded back to trial court on September 21 by the state Court of Appeals,…
If you’ve been following the news today, you already know that the Catholic Church stripped St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix of its religious affilation because of a surgery last year that involved the death of an unborn child. (Whether it was an abortion, per se, is apparently one of the issues up for…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio finally is cooperating with the U.S. Justice Department in its civil-rights probe, thanks to an “unprecedented” lawsuit filed against the county. This isn’t the abuse-of-power investigation by the feds, which we keep hearing will result in several indictments. (We’ve heard such rumors for months — now we hear…
The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors has agreed to return control of its civil litigation unit to the County Attorney’s Office, now that they’ve got a county attorney they like.The Arizona Republic reports this morning that new County Attorney Bill Montgomery and the Supes “will announce today” that they’re giving up…
Before the release of draft rules on Proposition 203, Will Humble, the director of the state Department of Health Services, estimated 100,000 people a year might qualify for medical marijuana.Now, under the proposed regulations, only 10,000 to 20,000 people a year would qualify, he said in a news conference today.The…
A woman says her ex-boyfriend has pulled a fast one on the legal system, and now there’s a chance he’ll be released from custody even though he stabbed her father to death. Walter McCarthy, 50, was found guilty but insane today of murdering 83-year-old Vernon Cumming.
The new presiding judge of the county justice courts, Lester Pearce, “appreciates” the blog post we wrote about him last month, a spokeswoman for the courts tells us today.That’s the blog post, (based on an Atlantic Monthly article), in which we wrote that Pearce seems to be off his rocker…
Documents in a lawsuit against the Arizona State Board of Education show that Marco de Niza High School officials made a deal with a former teacher to keep quiet about her student lover.Tamara Hofmann was accused by her bosses at the Tempe school in 2007 of having sex with student…
A local lawyer arrested last year on suspicion of possessing child pornography was found guilty on all counts yesterday.But here’s the sick part: A juror in the case tells us this morning that the lawyer, Davis William Curtis Jr., 64, did much more than look at kiddie porn on his…
The Arizona Department of Health Services released a draft of rules today for the launch of a medical-marijuana program authorized by the voter-approved Proposition 203.Let the debate begin.The draft rules place additional restrictions on the law in terms of what defines a doctor-patient relationship, suggesting that a patient must have…
