S.F. cops crack down on pot in Haight S.F. CRIME Undercover buy-bust operation snares dozens of small-time dealers

Capt. Greg Corrales in jeans and “Grumpy’’ jersey leads the crack down that has nabbed 50 sellers so far. Capt. Greg Corrales in jeans and “Grumpy’’ jersey leads the crack down that has nabbed 50 sellers so far. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close S.F. cops crack down on pot in Haight 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

San Francisco police Capt. Greg Corrales strolled down a dirt path in Golden Gate Park, wearing a pair of black jeans, a Giants cap and a jersey that read "Grumpy." He was looking for someone to arrest.

As Corrales, 64, approached Alvord Lake, a ragged young man caught his eye and pinched a finger and thumb between his lips.

Corrales knew the sign: weed for sale.

The undercover captain said he wanted $20 worth of marijuana, pocketed his purchase and disappeared into the park. Moments later, a team of officers swooped in to arrest the unsuspecting seller.

The police operation was one of 50 undercover busts Corrales has led since transferring to the Haight-Ashbury district in June to lead a crackdown on street-level marijuana dealing. In a buy-bust operation, an undercover officer poses as a customer and buys drugs from an individual he or she suspects of selling them.

To many residents, the arrests are a welcome relief in a neighborhood they say is overrun by aggressive vagrants and dealers. But to marijuana legalization activists and residents who fondly recall the Haight of the 1960s, the campaign represents a return to a time of zero tolerance for peace, love and pot.

In the district that was the birthplace of the hippie revolution, police are jailing suspects for amounts of marijuana that, in a possession case, would amount to a $100 ticket.

"The people of San Francisco have voted repeatedly they don't want marijuana laws enforced," said Dennis Peron, a longtime medical marijuana activist. "It's a waste of time."

Small-time busts

Some of the operations have netted repeat offenders, including several suspects with guns or outstanding warrants. But most of the suspects carried small amounts of marijuana. Some had medical marijuana ID cards. Corrales, a former head of the narcotics division, said he didn't care.

"It really doesn't matter," he said. "They can't sell."

Ted Loewenberg, president of the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association, is among those who approve of the crackdown. He moved into the neighborhood in 1989, in the midst of a crack epidemic.

"I got to see the everyday reality of what the drug culture did to people," Loewenberg said.

He and about 30 others formed a group called RAD - Residents Against Druggies. A few nights a week, they armed themselves with two-way radios and walked the streets, looking for buyers and dealers.

"If we saw someone we suspected of buying, we would circle around them and just make them so uncomfortable they didn't want to buy," recalled Susan Strolis, a waitress who moved to the neighborhood in 1985.

Easing pot laws

But others in the city wanted to decriminalize marijuana. In 1991, voters passed Proposition P, urging the state to legalize medical marijuana. Peron opened the Cannabis Buyers' Club, the country's first dispensary, in 1992.

Corrales, a former Marine, had made a name for himself as a young undercover officer in the 1970s. His specialty was the buy-bust targeting heroin dealers in the housing projects.

By 1994, he was a captain and headed the narcotics division. Corrales said he couldn't ignore Peron.

"He got so brazen, he went on the television show 'Hard Copy.' They had a segment with him showing the reporters around," Corrales recalled. "He was a marijuana dealer."

Peron was leading the statewide campaign for Proposition 215 to legalize medical marijuana. Corrales and his undercover investigators found evidence that Peron was selling marijuana to customers who were not ill. But then-District Attorney Terence Hallinan refused to prosecute.

By then, Hallinan had visited Peron's medical marijuana club. "I thought it was great," he recalled. "There were people there with AIDS. Everyone had company and friends. It didn't make sense to me to go raiding that. So they went around me."

Raid backfired

Corrales took his case to then-Attorney General Dan Lungren, an aspiring Republican gubernatorial candidate and Prop. 215 opponent. In the summer of 1996, with voters considering the measure, Lungren led a raid on Peron's dispensary.

The raid, however, created sympathy for Peron's cause. Californians voted in favor of the initiative; the police chief banished Corrales from narcotics.

In the Haight, many merchants and residents now clamor for Corrales' aggressive strategies.

After residents complained to the Police Commission in February about open marijuana dealing, an impatient Chief Greg Suhr ordered a buy-bust team into the district and replaced the district's captain with Corrales.

Now the number of buy-busts in the Haight has more than tripled.

"I could see if it was crack cocaine or something harsh like meth," said 25-year-old Michael Fulmore, who is fighting two felony charges after giving an undercover officer a gram of marijuana in March. "But this is pot. A gram of weed. It's like a ticket. Not a felony."

Caught off guard

Corrales has no qualms about the buy-bust operations.

"When I first went out there, they were careless," he said. "I probably could have bought marijuana in a suit and tie because there had been no enforcement, so nobody was paranoid. Now they're more careful."

He was still wearing his "Grumpy" shirt on that day in June when he returned to the group of men at the lake.

"Got anything?" he asked.

"Not for you, we don't," one replied, muttering "pig" under his breath.

Corrales feigned outrage.

"I'm 75 damn years old," he yelled, adding more than a decade to his age. "How the hell am I going to be a cop?"

"Calm down," the young man said. "We gotta be careful. Our buddy just got busted. How much do you want?"

Corrales walked away with another $20 worth of marijuana. And his officers made their second buy-bust arrest of the day.