OFFICIALS WELCOME POT CLUB RULING; LOCAL AUTHORITIES EXPECT TO WIN LAWSUIT TO KEEP CLINIC SHUT.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

City and county officials said Thursday that they plan to use a new state Supreme Court ruling, effectively outlawing medical marijuana clubs, in their effort to prevent such a club from reopening in Thousand Oaks.

During a hearing scheduled for Monday, officials plan to invoke the decision released Wednesday by the state's high court, which refused to review a ruling that voter-approved Proposition 215 doesn't allow marijuana sales and doesn't allow a commercial enterprise to provide marijuana.

``It shows the Supreme Court view is consistent with the Court of Appeal view,'' said Deputy District Attorney Mitch Disney. ``It's a positive development from our point of view. It's a good thing.''

But the attorney for Andrea Nagy, who opened Rainbow Country Ventura County Medical Cannabis Center last fall, said the decision does not apply to his client. Attorney James Silva said that Nagy operates her clinic differently from the one in San Francisco that was the subject of the state Supreme Court decision.

Instead of selling marijuana to clients, Nagy was reimbursed by clients for cultivating marijuana that they own as a group, he said. ``Hers is of a cooperative nature, where they all possess the marijuana that is used for medicinal purposes together.''

Disney said this is a new claim by Nagy.

``They haven't presented any evidence that they're anything other than a sales organization,'' he said. ``If the operation has changed, then we'll deal with it.''

The hearing Monday will come in a civil lawsuit filed by the Ventura County District Attorney's Office against Nagy and her boyfriend. Prosecutors won a temporary injunction against Nagy and are seeking to make it permanent.

After the temporary injunction was imposed, Nagy shut the doors and removed the marijuana plants from her offices on Thousand Oaks Boulevard. The office is bare.

``Right now she's kind of in a holding pattern,'' Silva said.

Last month Nagy sued Thousand Oaks to try to force the city to issue her a certificate for the center. Without an actual business, the lawsuit seems moot, Friedl said.

Friedl also said the Supreme Court decision will do little to change the way Thousand Oaks is approaching the creation of its own marijuana cultivation ordinance. Proposition 215 is still the law, and people still may - for their own use and not for sale - grow marijuana recommended by their doctors. The city just wants to regulate when, where and how it can be grown, Friedl said.

The issue is scheduled to go before the Planning Commission in late April or early May, he said.