Fairfield Store Shut Down Over Marijuana Sales
FAIRFIELD (BCN) - Fairfield police shut down a store in the city late last week that had obtained a false business license in an attempt to sell marijuana to residents from the location, police said.
The business had been illegally distributing the drug and connected paraphernalia for less than a week before police shut the store down over the course of a two-day operation, police reported.
Police were notified on Wednesday by a citizen the their child had found a store within Fairfield city limits that was selling marijuana, according to a police report.
After a brief investigation, officers were able to locate the store and speak to the shop's owner, identified in the report as Michelle Nix.
Police would not elaborate about where in the city the store had been located.
The shop was behind an unmarked storefront, and there were bars on the doors and windows, as well as paper covering the windows, police said.
Nix - who is a resident of Georgetown, a town just north of Placerville - admitted to officers that she was selling marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia at her store, but that she had a business license to make sales, police said.
She then amended her story, telling officers that she doesn't sell pot at the store, but rather gives the drugs and associated products away to "members" of a supposed club for free, police said.
Fairfield narcotics detectives were joined by staff from the city's Community Development Department in a coordinated investigation into the business, police said.
Investigators quickly discovered that Nix's business license had been recently issued, but that it permitted her to sell clothing at her store, not marijuana or any smoking products, police said.
The city's director of community development immediately issued a letter to Nix that revoked her business license because she had obtained it through misrepresentation, police said.
The owner of the building that houses the shop insisted to police that he was not aware of the marijuana sales and that he had begun the process of terminating the business's lease, police said.
A search warrant was obtained based on the illegal marijuana sales through a joint effort between the Fairfield Narcotics Unit and the Solano County District Attorney's Office, police said.
Officers seized marijuana and other evidence from the business around 4 p.m. on Thursday, police said. Two employees of the store were briefly detained, but then released.
While detectives were in the store, a Sacramento resident arrived to deliver more than a pound of marijuana, police said. He was subsequently arrested.
The case has been forwarded to the District Attorney's Office, which may pursue further charges for the illegal sale of marijuana and the unlawfully obtained business license, police said.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
