Timbisha Shoshone Tribal Chairman George Gholson emphatically told the Ridgecrest, California city council last week that the tribe will never sell cannabis at the casino property it hopes to put into trust near the city.
The chairman went off the agenda to assure the council “I want to be perfectly clear. The tribe will never sell, carry or condone or have any type of cannabis activity on any level whatsoever in the city of Ridgecrest — ever. We never came here to have any type of endeavor such as that and we stay true to that.”
He said the issue keeps reoccurring on social media and in the News Review newspaper. He addressed rumors that the tribe will “run amuck, just drill wells, grow marijuana, do whatever we want. that could not be further from the truth,” according to a report by the Daily Independent.
In the waiver the tribe has signed with the city whereby it gives up some of its sovereign immunity, would allow the city to sue the tribe if it violates the agreement, and make the tribe pay for the legal action.
Gholson displayed a document called 25 CFR. He declared, “This covers everything from arts and crafts to cattle to land. This is what regulates us. If I want to cut wood on tribal land, I have to go to the BIA to get permission. If I want to burn on tribal land I have to go to the BIA to get permission.” He concluded, “I just want to make it clear to the public that it is not a free-for-all. We have regulations that we have to adhere to.”
The tribe recently triumphed in federal court against opponents. The tribe’s rights were upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Nevertheless, the issue continues to be a lightning rod for local residents, many of who showed up at the city council meeting last week.
One member of the community challenged Gholson’s assertion that the tribe cannot sell marijuana. Mike Neel, quoted by Daily Independent, said “You can make verbal promises all day long but when you sit in a meeting and refuse to modify your contractual agreements along the lines of we won’t grow marijuana in Ridgecrest I don’t see a lot of weight in that.”
