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Fresno Unified School District has been looking
for a new superintendent, and the public

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messaging about it was unbelievably sanguine.
The public messaging we've been hearing was chiefly

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in the form of a big,
splashy op ed piece written by Susan Wittrup,

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who's a member of the Fresne Unified
Board of Trustees, talking about,

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Oh, we're so grateful to Bob
Nelson for his wonderful years of service that

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Fresne Unified. As Bob Nelson rides
off into the sunset for some sinecure easy

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position at Fresno State and now there. But the main thing Witchrup said,

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the word that I noticed was used
multiple times was diversity. That we need

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to make a hire to highlight our
diversity, highland diversity, diversity, diversity.

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The word diversity was used. I
might have been making up that specific

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formulation, but I know the word
diversity was used and highlighted as a priority

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several times over the course of this
ip bed, which feels like another way

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of saying, we recognize that Bob
Nelson was a white guy, and so

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our main priority here is not hiring
another white guy, which is so typical

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of these liberal run institutions. That
that's what we're going to focus on,

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Not the fact that the school district
is doing a terrible job, that seventy

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plus percent of the kids are not
proficient at math or English. We don't

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care about any of that. No, that was not mentioned, Not that

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teachers can't enforce the cell phone rule
to prevent kids from using cell phones in

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class, Not that we just included
this huge pay increase for teachers when there's

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no discernible improvement in student performance.
In fact, there's very discernible student decrease

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in performance. One of the more
intelligent guys who's been writing about what's happening

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within Fresny Unified in public schools around
California is Todd Madison. Todd's the research

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director for Transparent California, and he
does a lot of work sort of is

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a founding member also of the Parent
Association Advocacy Group, So he does a

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lot of work researching K through twelve
education, researching outcomes in K twelve education,

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and trying to highlight a certain kind
of you know, looking at the

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problem through more of a business lens
and sort of highlighting the problem that we've

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been treating the public school system in
California too much through the lens of the

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most powerful force in the politics related
to it, which is the teachers' union.

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The teachers' union individual teachers' unions in
individual school districts that have various statewide

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affiliations with each other. Teachers' unions
are hugely important and powerful political forces that

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can drive school board elections, get
out the vote efforts for school board elections.

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Who is endorsed for school board elections. A lot of times, teachers

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unions will buy both sides of the
negotiating table. They will have their side

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and a bunch of people whom they
endorsed for the school board will be on

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the other. And the point of
a teacher's union. We lose sight of

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this. The point of a teacher's
union is not necessarily to educate children.

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That might be a happy byproduct of
what they do. But the point of

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what a teacher's union does is to
get more jobs, better pay, better

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hours for teachers' union members. That's
the point of a union. Okay,

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the point of a knife is to
cut things. The point of a union

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is to get more money, more
jobs for union members. That's the point

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of it. That's the purpose,
that's the the end goal towards which it

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is oriented, not necessarily higher student
performance, because if you wanted high student

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performance, you might have to fire
some teachers who aren't, you know,

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up to snuff. And the whole
process of negotiating the big pay increase that

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the teachers' union received, that whole
process, nobody brought up the question of

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teacher performance that it should be tied
to pay the collectively bargained the new agreement

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between Fresdney Unified and the teachers Union
that was ratified by in November, nobody

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brought up teacher performance. And the
numbers are staggering. So there's really good

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piece in Fresno b by Todd Madison. Today, I'm going to read through

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some of it. Presney Unified is
going to get a new superintendent, he

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writes. Current superintendent Bob Nelson,
is stepping down this summer after more than

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six years of service. The district
has faced hurdles during his tenure, including

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managing the pandemic response. But nothing
is so central to the mission of a

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school district then the academic performance of
Fresno's children. That's the actual point of

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the school district. The pandemic had
a huge impact on that performance. By

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every objective measure, including the state's
own yardstick, the Smarter Balanced assessments.

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The SBAC academic achievement levels are down
significantly throughout the state. Fresney Unified School

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District has not escaped. During Nelson's
tenure, English performance declined from having thirty

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seven percent of kids considered proficient to
thirty three. In math, the decline

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was from twenty seven percent of kids
being proficient to twenty three percent. The

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starting points were not good to begin
with, but having that decline is worse,

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right, So let's just remember sixty
seven percent of kids in Fresne Unified

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are not proficient in English language performance, So that's basically reading and writing.

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Sixty seven percent of kids two thirds
of them can't read or write at grade

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level, and then seventy seven percent
of them cannot do math at grade level.

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Seventy seven percent of kids in Presdent
Unified can't do math at grade level.

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Like, why aren't we talking about
anything else? It's one of these

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things, like it's such a the
standard is so bad that we don't think

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to talk about it all the time
every day and maybe we should like the

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standard they've set. The bar is
so unbelievably low, and they have somehow

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managed to sink even lower. Madison
continues, it would be unfair to blame

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the low level of academic performance on
Nelson's leadership. Correlation is not causation,

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but it's clear that leadership did not
overcome the hurdles or improve the education of

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Fresno's kids. President Unified's bord now
is a golden opportunity to do something different,

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to hire a superintendent and make improving
education their first priority. Like why

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wouldn't that have already been the first
priority? One would ask? Board president

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Susan Wittrup recognizes this need with recent
b article quoting her saying, we need

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to take it to the next level, such as in test scores. Our

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children could be doing much better academically. We can certainly hope that actually happens,

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but shouldn't the education of our kids
be based on more than hope.

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In twenty twenty two, according to
data obtained by Presney Unified and published on

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the Transparent California website, Nelson's total
pay was three hundred and ninety four nine

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hundred and sixty dollars, with total
compensation including the cost of benefits almost a

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half million dollars four hundred eighty two
thousand, five hundred eighty five bucks.

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We often hear parents gasp at those
numbers. Half million dollars is a lot

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of money, particularly in Fresno,
where the US Bureau of Labor Statistics says

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the average county residence average county resident
made fifty one twenty six dollars. Presdent

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Unified is a large organization with a
total budget of over two billion dollars.

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Some data show the average CEO of
a company with total revenues over five hundred

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million dollars makes one point four million. By that standard, the f USD

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president the FUSD superintendent is a bargain, but there's a significant difference. In

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private industry, a huge portion of
that compensation, often up to fifty percent

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of it, is based on meeting
board specified performance goals. There you go,

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board specified performance goals. A private
CEO is held accountable by their board

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by making sure the leader as a
significant amount of personal skin in the game.

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If the CEO doesn't improve something important
to the company, that person loses

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out on a large part of the
paycheck. Not so in education, where

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superintendent pay is often dependent on nothing
more than what was the last person paid

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time in the chair and the ability
of a superintendent to convince the board that

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they're trying really hard. Our boards
of education don't consider actually improving the education

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of our kids, not just trying
hard to be so important? Why do

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school boards not make sure the highest
paid discre employee is incentivized to accomplish the

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goals they define? Does that make
sense? President? Unified board is an

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opportunity to change that. The trustees
can make sure their new superintendent is paying

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attention to their goals and priorities by
tying a portion of the super zone pay

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to that attention. The California State
Dashboard provides a good way to define those

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goals. The dashboard is far from
perfect, but it is the state's yardstick.

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Its metrics are understandable, and it
seems a reasonable starting point for determining

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objective measures. Budgets are important also. The budget is an objective view of

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the financial performance of a district.
Keeping that budget in the black would be

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a primary function of the leader of
any organization. A properly designed performance based

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compensation program would include a few key
measures that can be objectively determined. If

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the employee succeeds, the employee wins, the board wins, and most importantly,

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the kids of the district win.
Isn't that what we all want?

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Every word of that was sound,
Every word of that was sound, and

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both I think Madison, and I've
interviewed Madison for stuff on power Talk,

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I think he would agree that it's
not gonna You don't need to one hundred

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percent tie every dollar of teacher pay
exclusively to performance. You know, you

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could have, in I mean,
you can have, in individual circumstances,

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an excellent teacher doing a really great
job, really pouring in her time and

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energy and talent, et cetera.
And you could have a kid who just

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doesn't do well for reasons outside of
the teacher's power and control, bad home

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life parents who don't value education,
the kid or the kid just makes bad

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choices. Like there are all kinds
of ways that that can happen. But

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to act as though teacher pay should
have no tie, no correlation, no

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connection whatsoever to student performance, I
think is insane. When we return,

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though, we'll explain why it is
that way, and the chief reason why

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being we are viewing this as a
jobs program for adults, not something for

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teaching children. That's next on the
John Jrwardy Show, Great Peace in the

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Fresno b by Todd Madison. I've
retweeted it to my Twitter account Twitter dot

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com slash Fresno Johnny. That's at
Fresno Johnny talking about the search for a

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new superintendent for Fresney Unified School District
and how hey, maybe we do something

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about trying to tie the superintendent's pay
to performance to student performance. That's what

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happens in with the CEOs of most
you know, major corporations is that over

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half their pay is tied to the
business's performance. The CEO has skin in

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the game, and thereby, by
tying it to his pay, the CEO

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is made accountable to the board of
directors. But instead, what happens with

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school districts is no, no,
no, no no. The superintendent's pay

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seemingly has no relationship to student performance
whatsoever, Absolutely no possible relationship to student

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performance at all. It's based purely
on well, what did we pay the

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last guys. As Madison points out, superintendent pay in California seems mostly to

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be defined by what did we pay
the prior person? How long have you

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been here as superintendent? You've okay, you've been on the job five years,

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all right, we need to give
you maybe some percent increase every year

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over year over year. So that's
what's going on. There's no discussion of

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any sort of bigger picture questions than
that we're not running it like a business.

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And that's what it is. I
mean on a certain level, the

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superintendent and Fresden Unified. But Nelson
was paid with pay plus benefits around half

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a million bucks about four hundred thousand
dollars in take home pay, and then

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with benefits, we're in the ballpark
of a half million dollars. Frozen.

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Unified is a district with a two
billion dollar budget. By a lot of

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other metrics, most companies that are
two billion dollars, they would have a

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CEO making somewhere over one million dollars
per ye. So maybe what we're doing

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this is not the right thing to
do. Maybe we structure the pay of

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the superintendent so that they can make
a lot more if there's good performance,

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or a lot less if there's bad
performance, or you keep under budget and

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blah blah blah blah, blah.
There are a lot of ways to skin

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this cat. The reason why we
don't is because if you concede that for

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the superintendent, people will start to
ask questions like that about teachers. You

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know, if this teacher all of
her kids have terrible test results, terrible

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scores, but this other teacher teaching
the same kind of cohort of kids,

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maybe another you know, two sixth
grade teachers at the same school, so

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pulling from the same kind of pool
of kids. This teacher year over year

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over year, her kids have better
test scores. This teacher, year over

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year of year, her kids have
worse test scores. Do we eyeball either

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the better teacher for more pay or
the worst teacher for less pay. And

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that's not how it works with the
union negotiated structure of teacher pay. Again,

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the main driving force in education policy
in California are the teachers unions.

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They're the main driving force for all
policy in California at the unions. California

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is a union dominated state. Sooner
we all understand that the better California is

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dominated controlled by labor as far as
public policy goes, and especially public sector

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unions, particularly the teachers' unions,
they control the whole thing so clearly,

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because they're the most powerful force throughout
the state and in local era and in

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local governments too. Like I think
I've made this point a lot. If

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you're driving around and you see it's
election season and you see a billboard for

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someone that says heh, so and
so for the Fresne Unified Board of Trustees

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endorsed by Fresno teachers, I think
most people have the reaction of, oh,

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well, that's nice. The teachers
think this person would be good for

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the school board, and who would
know better than the teachers. No,

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you should have the exact opposite reaction, if anything, when I see that,

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almost as a matter of pure principle, I want to vote against the

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person. Why the point of the
board of trustees is to negotiate with the

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teachers union on teacher pay teacher compensation
as a matter of principle, just so

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you don't give away the taxpayer's store, you might want to just take the

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approach of, hey, maybe I
shouldn't have the same party owning both sides

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of the negotiating table. That's precisely
what's happened in school district after school district

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after school district all up and down
the state. And because of that,

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the structure of teacher pay in school
district, after school district, after school

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district around California is premised around looking
at public schools as adult job programs,

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not entities that are focused on educating
children. So your pay is not really

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tied to performance, is always,
always, always tied to seniority. If

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someone just came in, hasn't put
in their years, hasn't put in their

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dues, they are far lower down
the totem pole. We don't care as

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much about them. That's the one
thing about teacher pay that's like slightly unfair

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is that entry level teachers don't make
very much money. That's true, the

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average teachers make on a average,
much more than other professionals in Fresno County

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with the same levels of educational attainment. But it's mostly because of the teachers

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who've been in for a longer time. They are paid extraordinarily high amounts of

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money. And guess what, those
teachers who've been around for a longer time,

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they don't want the insecurity that comes
with close scrutiny of their job performance.

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They don't want close scrutiny of job
performance. They don't want their pay

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to be based around student test scores. They want the greater security of No,

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no, no, we're the union. We're taking care of you've been

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in your staying at No, we're
not gonna let the big bosses cut your

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pay. Which, by the way, that sort of attitude makes a little

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more sense like at you know,
the Ford Motor Company for people work in

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the line less. So for a
government run institution like a school district,

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where there is no profit motive,
the motive is to educate children. But

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because the union controls both sides at
the table, that's not really the motive

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anymore. The motive is hiring more
adults. That's the point of it.

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That's why it exists in their eyes. And so you'll you know, we

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had this whole public debate in Fresno
over the summer and fall about the new

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CBA, the new collectively bargained agreement
that the district and the teachers' union were

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negotiating with each other. No one
brings up the idea that student academic performance

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should be tied to teacher pay,
or that teacher pay should be tied to

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student academic performance. No one brought
up in the public debate other than like

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me, I think, and possibly
Trevor did. I'm not sure. I'm

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trying to recall any segments he did
about it. But no one was bringing

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up that thirty three percent of kids, only thirty three percent of kids in

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Fresney Unified are considered proficient in English
reading and writing, that only twenty three

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percent of kids are considered proficient in
math. The district is doing a terrible

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job of educating teachers. Maybe we
should do something to incentivize better performance on

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the part of teachers. Maybe if
your kids can get better test scores to

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a certain extent, we can boost
your pay or something. But no,

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we never had any even bare whisper
of anything like that. And I think

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the teachers' union would react to such
a suggestion with shock and horror and outrage

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and how dare you why? Because
they view this as a jobs program for

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adults. They don't actually really view
it as an enterprise for educating kids.

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If we did view it as an
enterprise for educating kids, we would look

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with greater scrutiny at academic performance of
children and look at the adults who are

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supposed to be educating them and say
maybe we need to tie some compensation decisions

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here, one way or another to
how these kids actually do, because that's

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why we spend all this taxpayer money
on these schools. It's to educate these

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kids. And we're spending all this
money and seventy seven percent of these kids

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are coming out not able to do
math at grade level. What was the

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point when we returned the illegal marijuana
shops still operating in Fresnos, still not

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shut down? What are we waiting
for? John Girardi with a see I

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told you so, that's next on
the John Girardi Show. So you've seen

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them all over town. They're sort
of little blights, little eyesres wherever they

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are. I remember seeing one time
a very tacky looking gas station and my

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friend's mom that I was driving with
in the car as we drove past and

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said, look at that. I
saw. That's what that's called an I

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saw. So something that's particularly stand
out ugly within a city or community.

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You've probably seen these eye sores that
I'm going to be discussing, smoke shops,

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vape stores, these places that are
clearly sort of presenting this image of

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we're selling a lot of weed paraphernalia. That's what we're about. That's what

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these stores are clearly signaling and messaging
and the stuff that's there. And these

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stores, they often stick out like
a sore thumb within a community. I

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remember talking with a guy in fresnok
and a little south. He owned a

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business sort of south of Tower district. He was moving out, and he

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was talking about how he was trying
to find a tenant and the only tenants

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he could get were these guys who
wanted to start vape stores, vape stores,

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smoke shops, smoke shops. And
he was like, gosh, I

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just don't want to deal I don't
want as a landlord to have to deal

258
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with these things. But they're like
the only guys who are wanting to They're

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the only people wanting to start these
businesses, all these smoke shops, all

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these vape stores. So they're popping
up all over the place, and the

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City of Fresno has begun along with
state actors. About six months ago,

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there was this big stirm and drong
that we need to crack down on these

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smoke shops. We need to shut
a lot of them down. Rob Bonta,

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the Attorney General, rode into Fresno
on a white horse. These smoke

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shops are terrible. We need to
take steps, take action, and go

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against them. Why well, because
they're selling marijuana illegally out the back door,

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which allows me to pat myself on
the back. I might wear out

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my rotator cuff patting myself on the
back. Why well, because I'm one

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of the few people who said,
Hey, legalizing marijuana is a bad idea.

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Don't do it. Don't legalize marijuana. It's just bringing all kinds of

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attendant social ills with it. It's
gonna make marijuana more accessible to kids,

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it's gonna lead to more dui deaths. It's just bad. It's bad,

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bad, bad, bad bad.
And guess what, I don't believe that

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it's going to destroy the illegal market. That one of the big arguments in

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favor of marijuana legalization is, oh, well, let's take marijuana. Let's

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take these drugs out of the illegal
black market. Let's bring these transactions out

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into the light of clear day.
But here's the problem with that argument.

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The only way they were able to
sell the legalized marijuana argument and get local

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governments to support it and get libertarians
to support it, really how to get

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how do you get local governments to
support it? How do you get local

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politicians to support it? You promise
that you can tax it, have it

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be legal, and let it be
heavily taxed. Why Because local politicians love

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they love love, love, love
love. They are constantly covetous for any

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new source of revenue that doesn't involve
coercively increasing taxes on a whole bunch of

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people. People don't like their taxes
being increased. They just don't look at

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measurey. Okay, the city get
Presno Counties and nope, not zero point

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two five cents. Nope, we're
not going to do it, even though

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there are a lot of good things
that would have helped with and that there

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00:27:00.079 --> 00:27:07.079
were some decent arguments for measury there
there were, there were some decent arguments

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for measury, but taxpayers of Presno
County just said, nope, not doing

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00:27:11.480 --> 00:27:18.160
it. People don't like their taxes
being increased. But local politicians think,

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correctly, this is a voluntary activity
that nobody has to do. Nobody has

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to smoke marijuana. Okay. John
Girardi has managed to live, you know,

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thirty six years on this floating blue
marble in space, and he's never

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00:27:37.880 --> 00:27:42.480
once used marijuana. You don't have
to smoke weed, you don't have to

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go to casinos. So let's tax
these things that are voluntary activities. No

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one has to do them. And
it's a source of revenue. Local politicians

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love that. They love it,
and that's how legal weed got basically sold

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to local governments, local politicians all
up and down the state. It's a

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source of revenue. It's how it
got sold to states individual, state after

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state after state throughout the country.
It's a source of state revenue, a

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source of local revenue, whatever it
is. Well, here's the problem.

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The people who want to buy pot
are potheads, and potheads are not necessarily

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00:28:33.319 --> 00:28:37.880
known for being really industrious, high
income types. I'm sure there are some

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00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:44.759
who are. Sure there are some
who do quite well for themselves. But

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that's the thing with pot is that
it makes you not as industrious and a

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00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:56.759
little lazier, a little slower going. So, yeah, there's not It's

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00:28:56.799 --> 00:29:00.960
not like you're this isn't Mercedes Benz. I'm not talking about, you know,

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00:29:00.039 --> 00:29:04.720
taxing, Mercedes Benz. Here we're
talking about taxing a product that lots

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of people who don't have a lot
of money really like, and in fact,

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maybe they don't have a lot of
money, in no small part because

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they keep smoking weed all the time
rather than getting a job or working hard

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or blah blah blah blah blah.
So as a result, you know,

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if you were a pothead before marijuana
legalization. And let me just note,

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00:29:30.279 --> 00:29:34.039
we always see like news reports,
Oh a drug deal went bad and there

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00:29:34.079 --> 00:29:37.279
was a shooting, or you know, you see on like a TV show,

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Oh this drug deal that went south. So many drug deals, the

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00:29:41.960 --> 00:29:45.839
vast majority of them in this country, in this state, do not go

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south. In fact, they go
perfectly due north. Thousands and thousands and

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thousands of drug transactions take place in
our Golden State every day, completely in

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violation of the laws of God and
man, without a single hiccup, without

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any interference from local law enforcement.
Money is given in exchange for narcotics,

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for mind altering substances. It happens
every day. It was happening before marijuana

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was legalized. And guess what,
even though marijuana got legalized, it continued

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to happen and people got weed all
the time everywhere in California with great ease.

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Now I think they're going to get
more. I think more people will

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get marijuana. I think more children
will have access to marijuana. But there

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was a decent chunk of people who, even with marijuana being illegal, were

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still getting weed. And those people
basically asked themselves the question, well,

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marijuana is now legal, should I
pay more money for legal marijuana? Or

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should I just pay less money for
this illegal marijuana that I won't get caught

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00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:18.240
if I buy it. I know
I'll keep paying less money for this illegal

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00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:22.680
marijuana that I won't get caught for
buying, because I would rather not spend

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as much money. People making that
kind of a purchasing decision has resulted in

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the illegal weed market in California still
being a huge, booming black market industry,

336
00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:45.519
a six billion dollar industry. In
the black market in California. Is

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00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:52.039
people buying weed illegally? And where
are they buying it on the street corner

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00:31:53.759 --> 00:32:00.480
outside of a garbage dump, in
a dark alley as someone and holds a

339
00:32:00.559 --> 00:32:07.359
knife menacingly. No, often they're
buying them in around or behind these smoke

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00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:12.839
shops that are all up and down
Fresno, all over the place. We

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00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:15.759
only have a couple of legal weed
dispensaries in the city of Fresno, and

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00:32:15.799 --> 00:32:21.519
we've got a million illegal weed dispensaries. All these smoke shops, a bunch

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00:32:21.559 --> 00:32:32.200
of them have people selling weed out
the back. Now, City of Fresno,

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00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:37.079
a bunch of local government officials,
including Miguel Arius, which kudos to

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00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:42.559
him, had this big press conference
six months ago. Rob Bonte came to

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00:32:42.599 --> 00:32:45.200
visit about how terrible these smoke shops
are. People are selling weed illegally in

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00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:49.440
them. All this bad stuff is
happening. That was six months ago,

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00:32:52.039 --> 00:32:57.480
and a bunch of members of the
city council said they were drafting legislation that

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00:32:57.559 --> 00:33:01.319
would result in shutting down a bunch
of these smoke shops. We're still waiting

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00:33:01.400 --> 00:33:10.599
for it. So what's the hold
up? Are we gonna do this or

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00:33:10.640 --> 00:33:15.680
aren't we? Since October, the
story in the Fresno be about this wrote.

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Since October, the city's Code Enforcement
Department has inspected thirty one smoke shops

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in Fresno. Of those, nearly
all were found to be engaged in some

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00:33:27.880 --> 00:33:35.160
form of illegal activity. There were
code violations, but inspectors also found unpermitted

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guns, great wonderful illegal drug paraphernalia, flavored tobacco products which we outlawed in

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00:33:44.920 --> 00:33:50.119
California just a little bit ago and
cannabis. Several of the shops were operating

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00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:55.839
hundreds of feet from school sites and
parks. Cannabis in particular seems to be

358
00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:00.440
at issue. Some smoke shops are
operating as pseudo to spend Street, said

359
00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:02.200
council member Nelson Asparza. It's that
simple, he said. It's really no

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wonder the legitimate market is being undermined. So that's the thing it now when

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we return, well, we'll dig
more into this when we return. I'm

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00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:22.000
wondering how much we can really effectively
limit, if not these specific kinds of

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00:34:22.000 --> 00:34:25.119
smoke shops, the notion of illegal
marijuana sales. That's next on the John

364
00:34:25.159 --> 00:34:31.119
Jrardy Show. It's been six months
since a bunch of city leaders said they

365
00:34:31.119 --> 00:34:35.880
were going to take on the problem
of smoke shops all up and down the

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00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:39.639
city of Fresno selling marijuana out the
back, engaged in illegal activity. We

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00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:45.119
still haven't seen any legislation on this
topic from the City of Fresno. I'm

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00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:47.239
wondering if it's a thing of you
know, we're trying to collect data,

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00:34:47.320 --> 00:34:51.920
we're trying to you know, code
enforcement has looked into thirty one of these

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00:34:51.960 --> 00:34:55.199
different smoke shops. One of them, this was an interesting thing from the

371
00:34:55.239 --> 00:35:04.199
story, the Royalt smoke Shop on
McKinley Avenue. Police seized more than one

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00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:10.159
thousand, one hundred grams of marijuana, so a kilo of marijuana, along

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with more than twenty five hundred dollars
in cash and two handguns, one of

374
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:19.599
which was modified to be fully automatic, according to a statement from the Fresno

375
00:35:19.679 --> 00:35:22.840
Police Department. So, just a
lot of lovely guys running these smoke shops

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00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:29.639
all up and down Fresno. And
as I mentioned in the you know,

377
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just the number of these shops is
kind of staggering. The Fresno Bee story

378
00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:43.800
says it's not clear exactly how many
smoke shops like this are operating in the

379
00:35:43.840 --> 00:35:49.400
city. There are more than four
hundred and thirty six tobacco retailers in Fresno,

380
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:54.760
according to the Fresno County Tobacco Free
Coalition. Well, those guys are

381
00:35:54.800 --> 00:36:01.679
doing a bang up job. The
Tobacco Free Coalition only four hundred and thirty

382
00:36:01.679 --> 00:36:06.880
six, four hundred and thirty six
tobacco retailers and president that's one for like

383
00:36:06.920 --> 00:36:09.719
every thousand people in Fresno. Practically, I guess Presno has more people than

384
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:15.440
that anyway, though the city puts
that number at closer to a thousand when

385
00:36:15.480 --> 00:36:20.159
you include convenience and grocery stores,
gas stations, liquor stores, and smoke

386
00:36:20.159 --> 00:36:22.599
shops. Well, and that's another
thing. Apparently a lot of these smoke

387
00:36:22.679 --> 00:36:29.880
shops have been able to open under
like grocery store licenses because they'll have,

388
00:36:30.039 --> 00:36:32.039
you know, a section where they
have, you know, a couple bags

389
00:36:32.039 --> 00:36:38.039
at Dorito's and Cheetos and funions and
that'll be enough and some diet cokes and

390
00:36:38.079 --> 00:36:45.239
that's enough to suffice as a grocery
store. But then they've got all this

391
00:36:45.400 --> 00:36:50.519
marijuana paraphernalia. They've got all this
you know, smoke paraphernalia. There are

392
00:36:50.519 --> 00:36:53.440
one hundred and twenty five licensed smoke
shops, Arias said, though he suspects

393
00:36:53.599 --> 00:37:00.480
hundreds more opening or operating without business
licenses or under a license at to a

394
00:37:00.519 --> 00:37:05.280
different location. Those are the businesses
that have been targeted by code enforcements so

395
00:37:05.400 --> 00:37:08.920
far and will continue to be the
focus of inspections as the city works through

396
00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:15.440
the smoke shop ordinance. Arius said, Now, this is my one point,

397
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the fundamental problem here. As I
identified in the last segment, is

398
00:37:21.639 --> 00:37:30.639
that people were buying and selling weed
legally in drug deals that did not go

399
00:37:30.719 --> 00:37:36.199
south. Millions of drug deals went
north in this state even while weed was

400
00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:40.519
totally illegal. And the people who
are buying weed are often not people with

401
00:37:40.599 --> 00:37:45.840
a lot of money. They have
no desire to pay more money for this

402
00:37:45.960 --> 00:37:52.159
product that they can get for less
money with no legal consequences. So even

403
00:37:52.199 --> 00:37:53.559
if you shut down all these smoke
shops, and I admit there are other

404
00:37:53.599 --> 00:37:59.719
benefits to shutting these smoke shops down
as far as other kinds of attendant illegal

405
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:02.800
stuff happening, I don't know how
you stop the black market of marijuana.

406
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They will find places to sell them
even if Unfortunately, even if you shut

407
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down all these smoke shops, which
I still think is a worthy goal,

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00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:15.440
that'll do it. John Girardi Show, See you next time on Power Talk