4A • November 10, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com
SignalViewpoints
A life in the cannabis trade
W
ayne Zallen, 64, is the owner of
Hi Dispensary and a partner
in Mystic Roots Cannabis on
Highway 26 near Seaside. He is the
owner of a cannabis-friendly RV park in
Josephine County, “Smoke on the Water
Lake Selmac” and has been profi led
in national publications for his role as
consultant and chief executive offi cer of
Grow Condos, Inc. As a business owner
on the North Coast, Zallen has made
his goal to be part of the community,
dedicating a portion of funds once a
month to charitable organizations.
Attorney General
Rosenblum comes to
grips with elder abuse
I
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
R.J. MARX
Q: Where you from?
Zallen: I’m from Mineola, New York.
I grew up in Ohio, moved to the Bay Area
and then up to Medford, Oregon, where I
raised my family.
Q: Were you a long-time advocate of
cannabis?
Zallen: I have been smoking pot since
I was 16.
Q: You started in Ohio? It was illegal
at the time.
Zallen: Oh God, yes — it was the
’70s.
Q: Did you ever get caught?
Zallen: I dropped two pounds off at a
guy’s apartment in Columbus when I was
in college. I was on my walk back when
I was busted. I didn’t even have a seed
on me. I did have some cash, but I didn’t
have a drop of marijuana. So they got me
for conspiracy to possess. They thought I
was going there to buy instead of to sell.
So they had nothing on me. The records
got expunged.
Q: Did you move into a more tradi-
tional career?
Zallen: Yes, I had a totally traditional
career. I graduated college with a degree
in advertising and marketing. I went out
to San Francisco to try to fi nd my way
and started an ad agency that dealt with
car dealers only. I made a lot of money.
The car dealers in the Bay Area were very
receptive. I got bored with that, and then I
went into the fi nancial services.
Q: In what way?
Zallen: In the late ’70s and early ’80s,
I got into the mortgage banking busi-
ness. At the time mortgage rates were 19
percent. I made a fortune doing that. Then
I went into the restaurant business in Al-
ameda, California. I sold all-beef Vienna
hot dogs. All businesses are tough, but
to make money in the hot dog business
at a buck a hot dog, you have to sell a
million of them. I sold it and the new
owners turned it into a Chinese restaurant.
I moved to Medford in 1992, where I was
an Allstate agent for 15 years.
Q: When did you get into the marijua-
na business?
Zallen: Me and a friend of mine
would go in on pounds in northern
California. We did that for decades. It was
pretty crazy.
Q: How did it play out?
Zallen: I sold my insurance agency,
got a whole bunch of new money from
that, and then I went out and bought a
rafting company because I love to be out
on the river. Marijuana was medically
legal in Oregon — this was when Obama
said he wouldn’t go after the medical
people — so I started an indoor-grow
R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL
Hi Dispensary in Astoria undergoes renovations.
warehouse in southern Oregon.
Q: How did you go about it?
Zallen: Basically, I had to get patients
and cards. We bought seeds on the
internet from seed banks. We sexed them,
sprouted them. We did that for nine years.
Then the laws began to change. Every-
thing began to change.
Q: Why did you open a dispensary?
Zallen: It was vertical integration.
Q: What’s that?
Zallen: It means I just moved money
from one pocket to the other. Instead of
buying from you, I’m buying from me.
Q: It’s like growing and selling corn?
Zallen: It’s like having a vegetable
stand.
Q: Why did you choose Astoria?
Zallen: Good question. I do love the
Oregon Coast and I love the fi sh. When
we fi rst became OLCC licensed, I tried
to buy a dispensary in Portland. At the
time, Medford, in Jackson County, where
I lived, had a ban on marijuana facilities.
The owner had two, one in Portland and
one in Astoria, and the one in Astoria did
better than the one in Portland.
Q: So he was selling his two shops?
Zallen: Yes. I made him an offer and
his lawyer said write it up, so I wrote it
up. Now I’m remodeling the whole thing.
That’s why I am here.
Q: Why did you start the other store
in Seaside?
Zallen: I started that with another
gentleman from Seaside. He had an ad
on Craigslist that he needed a partner. I
said the only way I am going to make this
work is to have a vested partner that lives
in the area. He is there most days.
Q: You are the fi rst person to open a
pot-friendly RV park?
Zallen: The people I bought it from
had been there for 11 years. They lived in
Palm Springs, California. I bought it from
them, and we are open year-round. Even
in the dead of winter my RV park is full.
Q: Why is that?
Zallen: Because all around me there
are hundreds of pot farms. The trim
workers need a place to stay, so they stay
in my park. We sometimes call them
“trimmigrants.” They need a place to stay
while they are trimming the weed for the
farms.
Q: What’s a trim worker?
Zallen: They cut the buds off the
sticks. They sit there for eight hours:
trim-trim-trim-trim-trim, all day long. All
they need is scissors. They make $10-$15
an hour. They’re coming
from California and
around the state. They
even come from the
East Coast to be in the
weed business for six
months of the year, then
Wayne Zallen they go away.
The only thing we
don’t have in the RV park is the weed.
But I’m working on that. I have an ap-
plication for that with the OLCC.
Q: Have you ever had any contact
with organized crime?
Zallen: No. We are too small on the
big scale of things.
Q: Where do you see the pot busi-
ness going or growing in the South
County? Do you see people coming here
for cannabis?
Zallen: You see cruise ships coming
into Astoria. There are people maybe
our age and they haven’t smoked pot
since college or whenever: “Oh, honey,
it’s legal here in Oregon!” So they buy
some weed, smoke it or eat it. We can
see a huge spike in our numbers when
the ships come in.
Q: Do you have a business philoso-
phy?
Zallen: One day a month we donate
a percentage of our proceeds. We see
huge spikes on that day. We’ve donated
to the hurricane fund, we’re donating
to the Oregon fi refi ghters, and then in
November we will donate to the food
bank in Astoria. It’s just like any other
business. We’re just like mom-and-pop.
I want people to see this as a normal
business.
Q: Is there camaraderie in your
business?
Zallen: I asked my manager if he
would set up a meeting with the other
dispensary owners. They didn’t want to
do it, but that’s how I do things.
Q: Where do you see the cannabis
business headed?
Zallen: I see prices going down. I
don’t know how much on the retail lev-
el, but on the wholesale level. A week
or so ago distributor came by and was
asking for $1,700 a pound. My manager
said to me the same guy, same weed,
was $1,400 a pound a week later.
Q: What’s the secret to your success?
A: I am just a businessman who
happens to be in the pot business. And
really most of the people in this business
are not businessman.
’m not being morbid when I tell my husband that when
it’s time to go, I get to leave fi rst. It’s no secret I’d be
lost without him. He knows all our online passwords.
I admit to not looking forward to being an elderly per-
son. Being as old as I am is hard enough. I dread outliving
our money or being a burden to my son. Also elder abuse
is on the rise. According to information gleaned from
the second annual Attorney General Rosenblum’s Elder
Abuse Conference
held Oct. 26 at the
Seaside Civic and
VIEW FROM
Convention Center,
THE PORCH
last year in Oregon
EVE MARX
35,800 crimes
against seniors
were reported. For
every crime reported, 14
‘Statistics tell
more aren’t.
When I hear the words
us that one
“elder abuse,” I think about
helpless, frightened, old
in 10 elderly
people, reduced to eating
people will
cat food. But elder abuse
these days is most likely to
be victims.
be fi nancial. The average
Oregonian can expect to live Do what you
about 84 years. Things look
can to make
pretty good for most folks
sure you or
until the last fi ve. That’s
when older people are most
someone you
likely to have their bank ac-
counts emptied by their own love isn’t one
family members to whom
of them.’
they’ve given power of attor-
ney. These are also the years
older people are most likely
to be targeted and exploited by scammers using lottery
schemes, construction scams, even scam dating sites.
The majority of elder abuse victims are women between
the ages of 80 and 90. Who are their abusers? 40 percent
of them are women. And 66 percent of elder abuse takes
place in the victim’s own home.
We all know or are related to someone who is very
old. Some of these folks are fairly self-suffi cient and live
alone. These are the people most likely to be taken in by
phone scams. Criminals who prey on older people often
start with a cold call. They tell their victim they’ve won
a lottery, or a gift card. They pretend to be the IRS, or
even police, invoking an imaginary warrant. Some come
to the door on a phony welfare check. There are ghost cab
scams. One of the saddest and most prevalent scams are
the so-called “sweetheart” scams that woo and entrap vul-
nerable older women eager for one last shot at romance.
At the conference, most of the attendees worked in
law enforcement. They came from all over the state to
attend workshops on how to secure medical and fi nan-
cial records; dealing with cognitive issues in victims and
witnesses; crime scene forensics; how to investigate and
gather evidence in domestic violence cases; how to assess
and document physical indicators of intentional abuse;
workshops on how to build their cases.
I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the Law & Order
TV series, “Special Victims Unit,” but it struck me that
the attorney general’s elder abuse unit is a real life special
victims unit. There is one permanent, full-time, elder
abuse resource prosecutor, and two permanent full-time
investigators. Many police departments in Oregon don’t
have the resources to have their own detective or inves-
tigator. The Elder Abuse Unit is important because it
increases the capacity to stop elder abuse by providing
training, technical assistance, and legal expertise to
district attorneys, law enforcement, basically anyone
working with older Oregonians.
Art Linkletter once famously said, “Old age is not for
sissies.” Or maybe Bette Davis said it. Besides losing
their eyesight, hearing, stamina, and mobility, advanced
seniors shouldn’t have to fear from their own family
members and caregivers, or be targeted by heartless
fi nancial schemers who see them as easy prey. Statistics
tell us that one in 10 elderly people will be victims. Do
what you can to make sure you or someone you love isn’t
one of them.
Headlines from the past tell human story of Seaside
S
easide saw some wild times in
the 1930s. Yet there are some
great parallels to more recent
times too!
From the headlines of the Sea-
side Signal:
In 1930, arrests in Seaside
jumped well over 100 percent from
the previous year. There were over
130 arrests, with only 50 arrested
in 1929. The Signal recorded that
In December 1930 there were nine
arrests. Two for drunkenness, three
for staying out after hours, two for
speeding, and two for disorderly
conduct. 10 transients were given a
place to sleep.
Cougars were an issue around
Seaside just as they are today. The
bounty for killing cougars was $25
each, but you had to go to Portland
to collect it. Most of the farmers
who were known to be good cougar
hunters were reluctant to take the
time to go into the big city for the
reward so the paper was urging
them to kill the cougars anyway
since they threatened livestock.
INTERIM PUBLISHER
EDITOR
Heidi Wright
R.J. Marx
BETWEEN
THE COVERS
ESTHER MOBERG
In 1931 the city was looking
for ways to improve the library. At
this time the state librarian came
and talked to the Seaside ladies’
group about ways they could help
to develop the library. Shortly after
this talk, 50 books were presented
to the Seaside library by George H.
Crandall, a local resident. The books
were received by the librarian Mrs.
Sophia Johansen for the library. The
books included “Lives of Illustrious
Men,” by Plutarch, and an “Outline
of History,” by H.G. Wells. (While
the library does not own these orig-
inal books anymore, you can still
fi nd Plutarch on the library shelves
today.)
While today we have more
concerns about drones on the beach,
back then it was requested at a meet-
CIRCULATION
MANAGER
PRODUCTION
MANAGER
Jeremy Feldman
John D. Bruijn
ADVERTISING
SALES
SYSTEMS
MANAGER
Brandy Stewart
Carl Earl
ing in 1931 that the north end of the
Seaside beach be roped off for use
by airplanes for barnstorming and
as a taxi area for takeoff. The city
council of the time said this would
be more of a nuisance than an asset
since there were already complaints
about planes fl ying over the beach.
Also in the 1930s, two fi shing
piers were built at Tillamook Head
over a period of three years, and
each time winter storms or fl oating
logs tore them down. The last pier
built fl oated into the cove after
being knocked into by a log or
some other large object in a storm.
Apparently fi shing piers just weren’t
meant to be built in the cove area.
Hikers traveling from Indian
Beach to Tillamook Head frequently
got lost in both January and Febru-
ary of 1931. Apparently the trail to
circle bridge was fairly hidden since
hikers were often unable to fi nd it
and would spend hours wandering
around before fi nally making their
way out of the woods. The second
pair mentioned as lost that year
STAFF WRITER
Brenna Visser
CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
Skyler Archibald
Rebecca Herren
Katherine Lacaze
Eve Marx
Esther Moberg
Jon Rahl
were two teenage girls who fi nally
made it out after following animal
trails for hours. They had original-
ly intended just a short hike to the
“hermit’s hut.” They caught a ride
back to Seaside just in time to meet
up with the search party that was
forming after concerns for their
delayed arrival. Another man had
spent all night wandering around
and had fi nally hiked out midday the
next day.
Back in the day, dairy farmers
felt threatened by the incursion of
margarine into the markets. All thir-
teen merchants in Seaside agreed to
not sell oleo margarine to keep local
dairy farmers in business selling
butter. Gearhart and Astoria store
merchants all entered into the agree-
ment as well so that the farmers
would have no fear of competition
or lack of butter sales.
Dynamiting stumps around Sea-
side took a turn for the worse when
a stump was lifted high enough in
the air to tear away power lines
requiring repairs and resulting in a
power interruption throughout town
until the lines were repaired. This is
reminiscent of Seaside’s more recent
incident with a Mylar balloon taking
out the power on the Fourth of July
here in Seaside. Power was out until
shortly after the fi reworks fi nished
on the beach around 10:30pm, just
in time for folks to return safely to
their homes.
Two men who carved their ini-
tials into signs at the turnaround in
1931 were turned into the police and
given a choice of paying a fi ne of
$5 or spending two days in jail for
defacing property. They elected for
jail time and were put to work fi rst
watering Mrs. Hensaw’s fl ower beds
(pocket gardens on Seventh Avenue
for the general public that had been
planted with dahlias and marigolds)
before spending the remainder of
their two days in jail. It was noted
they were released without incident
after serving their time.
There have been a lot of changes
since the 1930s, but perhaps some
things do still stay the same.
Seaside Signal
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