The mother of a Cathedral Catholic High School student was sentenced Friday to 11 years, eight months in state prison after admitting she had guided a teen to sell drugs to a network of other students.

“It’s absolutely sickening to the court,” San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy Walsh said of the actions by Kimberly Dawn Quach, 49.

He imposed the harshest penalty on Quach that was available to him under terms of a plea agreement.

The judge also sentenced Quach’s former boyfriend, William Sipperley, 50, to six years and four months in prison for his role in growing and pricing marijuana products.

“It was a business partnership,” the judge said. “He provided the marijuana and Ms. Quach would get the customers.”

Quach’s ex-husband and two friends pleaded with the judge to be lenient, saying Quach loved her family, was highly remorseful and hoped to become a productive member of society again.

The judge reacted to their comments by saying Quach had “set a horrible example” and exposed her two children, ages 17 and 10, to “extreme danger” from drugs in the home.

Authorities say Quach taught a 16-year-old girl to sell pot to other students at Cathedral High in Carmel Valley as well as to students in La Jolla from January to September 2017.

Quach hosted student parties at her home and provided them with a variety of narcotics, including a synthetic heroin, as well as alcohol and nicotine, Deputy District Attorney Christina Eastman said in court.

“There was no limit on what she would provide,” Eastman said. “She was setting up a full-fledged distribution business on the backs of children. Her clients were children.”

In May, Quach pleaded guilty to five charges related to drug possession or sales. She has remained in custody for about a year.

Sipperley pleaded guilty in May to two charges, including using a teen to sell marijuana.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed in October, Quach came under suspicion after parents of a teenager found suboxone, a synthetic heroin, in their daughter’s room. They also uncovered text messages between Quach and their daughter, who was friends with one of Quach’s children.

“It is known at the school that if you need anything, you can have Quach buy it for you,” a San Diego police investigator wrote in the search warrant affidavit.

When police searched the home Quach shared with Sipperley and her children, they found marijuana drying on tables throughout the home, as well as equipment to grow the plants.

Sipperley left the area before Quach was arrested. He was eventually found and jailed.

Quach spoke to the judge through tears before she was sentenced, saying “no one is to blame but me” and that she has taken advantage of rehabilitation classes and church services while in jail.

“I’d like to prove to my family and the court I can come out (of prison) a better person,” Quach said.

© 2018 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Two businessmen who were denied a permit to operate a medical marijuana collective in La Mesa are suing the city.

Wayne Alexander Scherer and Rezwan H. Khan of New Origins Management, Inc. filed a civil suit on July 23, alleging the city failed to follow its appeal process and did not provide written documentation explaining its decision.

New Origins was granted a conditional-use permit in March by the La Mesa Planning Commission to open in the La Mesa Medical Plaza on University Avenue near El Cajon Boulevard.

A month later, however, the La Mesa City Council denied the permit after hearing an appeal from the San Diego Center for Children. The council determined the collective would be in violation of a city ordinance that bans dispensaries within 1,000 feet of a minor-oriented facility, such as the nonprofit center that works with children.

The cannabis business was looking to open at 7339 El Cajon Blvd., Suite C. The Family Wellness Center/East County Outpatient clinic, part of the San Diego Center for Children, takes up the medical center’s Suites J and K. San Diego Center for Children helps youngsters struggling with mental, emotional and behavioral issues. The center has a contract with the County of San Diego and works with 27 schools in four school districts in East County.

San Diego Center for Children President and CEO Moises Baron requested the appeal of the Planning Commission’s green light, saying he had not been aware of the dispensary until reading about it in The San Diego Union-Tribune.

New Origins’ owners allege the city’s appeal process and procedures were not properly executed, that required “substantial admissible evidence” was not appropriately shared by the San Diego Center for Children and there was no written documentation explaining the council’s decision.

“The only written account of the City Council’s finding is found in the minutes of the April 24 hearing, which merely memorializes that the City Council voted to uphold the Center’s appeal,” wrote New Origins’ attorney Nathan Shaman in the civil suit.

“The findings did not specify why the Center’s existence as a minor-oriented facility required that the Center’s appeal be upheld. They failed to adequately explain the analytical process by which the City Council determined the Center constituted a minor-oriented facility and, more specifically, an after-school program.”

Shaman said his clients believe the wellness center does not qualify as a minor-oriented facility and they have “relevant evidence that demonstrates that the Center’s services do not fit the definition of an after-school program primarily devoted to people under the age of 18.”

The evidence, the suit contents, includes a contract between the Center and the County and a contract between the Center and the La Mesa-Spring Valley School District.

“Most of what they do is off-site,” Shaman said. “They have a couple of contracts but all of the services they provide are not done at that office. Not to say they don’t do anything at that office — they have family group counseling, but nothing that remotely resembles after-school programming is done at that site. We believe that the San Diego Center for Children has misrepresented the nature of what they do at that location.”

Baron, who several years ago helped shut down an illegal marijuana dispensary in the same medical plaza, said he stands by his facility’s work with children. He said the center has followed the protocols that the city required for the appeal hearing.

Baron said he was particularly bothered by the civil suit’s claim that the center should have objected to the issuance of a permit for the dispensary during the Planning Commission meeting. The city sent out notices to businesses within 1,000 feet of the planned dispensary in advance of the meeting, but Baron said his facility wasn’t notified.

“We were not aware of it,” Baron said. “We never received notice. If we had received notice, we would have expressed our concern earlier. The question is, who did the city send it to? The landlord? We are not the landlord, we are a tenant. It was not shared with us. Once we became aware, we immediately contacted the city.”

Baron said the city told him there was a published notice in a local La Mesa paper about the Planning Commission meeting that no one from the facility saw.

“But that’s irrelevant,” Baron said. “We were able to (appeal) in the time granted. Looking at the information requested for the city of La Mesa, we met the criteria. We provided appropriate and accurate information to the City Council about our activities and the nature of what we do and why we believe we are a child-oriented facility. We have been added to the city’s registry.”

Shaman said that by the time the evidence is weighed in court, with possible appeals and reviews, another medical marijuana dispensary could move in within 1,000 feet of that location, meaning his clients will be out of luck. And out of more than $250,000, which is what they have spent to open New Origins in La Mesa.

“Time is of the essence,” Shaman said. “We’re trying to push this forward. We’re open to any potential solution and hope to resolve this as quickly as possible.”

© 2018 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

It is really easy to buy weed in Chula Vista.

All you need is cash, a valid ID, and a copy of the San Diego Reader – an alternative weekly newspaper where unlicensed pot shops advertise discounts and customer loyalty programs.

There are currently nine unlicensed marijuana dispensaries in Chula Vista. All but one of them are in the southwestern part of the city, along Third Avenue and Broadway.

Chula Vista has been engaged in an endless game of whack-a-mole for years. As soon as the city shuts down one dispensary, another opens. Since 2014, the city has closed more than 35 unlicensed stores.

“We’ve had operators open up at locations where either the same or a different operator was previously shut down,” said Deputy City Attorney Megan McClurg. “We’ve also had operators open up, we’ve shut them down, and then the operator just relocates to another address, sometimes just down the street.”

Although illegal pot shops are nothing new to Chula Vista, McClurg has noticed an increase since the state legalized recreational marijuana in November 2016.

“There has definitely not been a decrease since November 2016,” she said. “In fact, we are seeing increasingly defiant, unlawful operators who are motivated to operate in violation of the law for as long as possible.”

Previously, operators would voluntarily shut down once the city notified them. But now the city sees more operators and landlords who appear to know the entire operation is illegal, she added.

Chula Vista currently has a ban on marijuana. The City Council approved a set of regulations in March and residents will vote on a cannabis tax in November. If the tax is approved, the city will issue permits as early as the first quarter of 2019.

But until then, every store selling marijuana in Chula Vista is operating illegally.

Despite being illegal, all of Chula Vista’s dispensaries are listed on Weedmaps, a website that lists the address and hours of cannabis storefronts. At least three dispensaries advertise on the San Diego Reader and two hire sign spinners to attract more customers.

All of them are busy.

More than a dozen customers walked into the Chula Vista Fire House on Main Street during a 10-minute span on Wednesday afternoon. One of the customers was dropped off by an Uber driver who waited outside while the customer bought drugs.

Employees at the store – and every other dispensary visited by the San Diego Union-Tribune – declined to comment.

“No one is going to want to talk to you,” said an employee at the Chula Vista Collective, one of two Third Avenue dispensaries that hire sign spinners.

Chula Vista’s dispensaries are all fairly similar.

The usual layout is a small room with a glass counter where a security guard checks your ID. First-time customers usually get a 10 percent discount.

Once given the go-ahead, customers walk into a larger showroom, usually with wooden floors, white walls, glass display cases, and hip-hop playing in the background.

Inside the display cases are pre-rolled joints, edibles, grams of various types of marijuana buds, pipes, and bongs. Some stores have coolers filled with cannabis-infused drinks and ice cream.

Behind the display cases are the bud-tenders, usually two or three young women who help customers find the right kind of product. Some of the stores have a sign telling customers not to harass their employees.

They sell bongs for $50, grams for $10, and a wide variety of produces like cheese-flavored chips called Wheetos, cannabis-infused soda called “legal,” and a marijuana-infused michelada mix.

Some of the stores are open 24/7 and hire enough staff – including private security guards – to keep those hours.

Unlicensed cannabis retailers also pay for advertising. The full-page ad on the San Diego Reader for Chula Vista Exotica boasts the store’s “non-Profit” status, “Lab-tested flowers,” and three security guards.

The Reader declined to comment when asked about profiting from illegal pot shops.

Several challenges prevent Chula Vista from shutting down illegal dispensaries quickly.

Operators hide their identities and have enough money to fend off closure efforts. Complicit landlords receive above-market rates and city resources in code enforcement, the police department, and the city attorney’s office are stretched thin, McClurg said.

Still, Chula Vista wants to be more aggressive.

The first step is raising civil fines. Current fines are $2,500 per day. If voters approve the cannabis tax in November, fines will be $10,000 per day. Chula Vista plans to use some of the cannabis tax revenues to beef up the city’s enforcement resources.

The city hopes added resources will help. But they don’t expect to get rid of all illegal pot shops.

“We do not expect that problem simply to ‘go away because we’ve started licensing ‘legal’ businesses,” City Attorney Glen Googins wrote in an email. “This is not what has occurred in other jurisdictions (including San Diego).”

The city is also looking to hire a criminal prosecutor to speed up the closure process.

Criminal prosecution tends to be a quicker enforcement tool than civil enforcement, partly because of constitutional rights to a speedy trial in the criminal process. Additionally, criminal prosecution opens up the possibility of obtaining search warrants that allow seizures.

Chula Vista included the position in their city budget and staff hope to find funding for the position by the end of the year.

Until then, anyone 21 and older in Chula Vista can walk into an unlicensed dispensary and get a 10 percent discount for being a first-time shopper.

©2018 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit The San Diego Union-Tribune at www.sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.