The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Higher Education Owner Facing Life In Prison; Dawn Morris Arrested For Pop-Up Drug Markets

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Higher Education Owner Facing Life In Prison Dawn Morris Arrested For Pop-Up Drug Markets Are Morris Charges Trumped-Up or Legitimate? Local Tax Data Out For 1st Half Of 2024 vs 2023 Mayor Of Scottsville Wins By Just 6 Votes (128-122) CVille Names Christmas Tree “Spruce Lee” What Should The CVille Tree Have Been Named? State Of Union: UVA Football Lowest Point In 43 Yrs Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller. Thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville Show. Great to be with you on a chilly afternoon in downtown Charlottesville with quite a bit of content to cover on today's program. A Christmas tree moniker for the big old tree in downtown Charlottesville, Spruce Lee, the new name for the Charlottesville Christmas tree. Spruce Lee pretty much dominated the competition. The other monikers that were considered, Boots with the Fur, Oatmeal the Third,

Treeler Swift. Boots with the Fur, not a bad one. Treeler Swift, they played on Taylor Swift. Oatmeal the Third, just a stupid name. Is Boots on the Fur... Boots on the Floor... It's a song. It's a song.

Very popular song. A song that you would be twerking to in the club in your heyday, Judah Wickower. Ranked choice voting utilized to pick the Charlottesville Christmas tree moniker. Was this the right name for the Charlottesville Christmas tree? We're going to have some fun today with that one. Poke a little fun at Charlottesville, Virginia. The lead story today is one of significant legal headwinds for an entrepreneur that's somewhat of a known commodity. And that entrepreneur, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately faces 160 years in prison because of a pop-up weed and mushroom market. Yes, cannabis. Yes, boomers, psychedelic shrooms she was selling in a pop-up fashion in Louisa County.

I'm going to ask this question. The authorities in Louisa County, are these trumped up charges, charges made to scapegoat an entrepreneur, or do they have legitimacy and authenticity with their backing? That topic on today's show. We'll talk also on today's program, the Chamber of Commerce releasing first half tax data, 2024 versus 2023. We'll take a look at that information, those metrics. And the mayor of Scottsville wins the past election by just six votes, a second term for the mayor of Scottsville. 128, 122 margin of victory this time. A lot we're going to cover, including a legitimate argument I will make for why the Virginia football program is at its lowest point in 43 years. Like and share the show.

Judah Woodcower will give some love to Charlottesville Sanitary Supply. 60 consecutive years in business on East High Street. John Vermillion and Andrew Vermillion at Charlottesville Sanitary Supply. Folks you can absolutely count on. Now with the fantastic e-commerce website, charlottesvillesanitarysupply.com. Judah, why don't we go to the studio camera and then a two-shot.

This headline garners three slots in our rundown. And it's the sad and unfortunate story of Dawn Morris, an entrepreneur who has a storefront in West Main, on West Main Street in Charlottesville, who has a storefront in Richmond, and who operated a pop-up weed

and psychedelic mushroom market in Louisa County. She had undercover drug officers patronize her Louisa County, Virginia pop-up market. People are like, what's a pop-up market? Well, I'll give you some perspective, some firsthand perspective, ladies and gentlemen. Firsthand perspective from one that takes place here in Charlottesville City. And I'm going to choose my words carefully because I'm not going to rat or narc anybody out here.

It's a very known pop-up market that happens in Charlottesville and the downtown area. Okay. The pop-ups that are happening are essentially farmer's market-esque. The pop-up markets basically are merchants in a location that bring what they have to sell. And the one in downtown Charlottesville encourages merchants from everywhere to offer their goods for sale. The one in Louisa County, from what we can tell, is tied to the owner of higher education who has now been arrested and faces some significant charges. Judah, I'll offer some perspective here.

Before I do, you jump in with some perspective, and then I'll text our client who's surprising us outside with some of your thoughts while you're holding on to the airways. Oh, man, I think this is just excessive. Are we still in the day and age where, I mean, this is, you know, people have discussed what the drug policies have done to the colored community in the last, what, 30, 40 decades? Three or four decades, 30, 40 years. And I would have thought that we were beyond, you know,

160 years for selling shrooms. This is not like she was selling them on, you know, on some elementary school's playground. This is a pop-up where people were, one would assume, going of their own free will. And the fact that Louisa County wants to try to give this woman 160 years in jail just seems extremely punitive. Okay, I'll put in very succinct fashion what's going on. She uses a storage facility to sell weed and mushrooms.

Undercover police purchase weed and mushrooms from her. They have offered warning to her prior to her arrest. She chooses to pursue the farmer's market pop-up style market and continue selling. She also gets in trouble for essentially perjury, saying she needs a court-appointed attorney because she doesn't have the money to hire her own attorney. In defense of her there, they essentially took all of the money, right?

I guess the argument you're going to be made, sure, she was wealthy until the authorities took away all her money. And she might be making the argument, hey, how I was going to be able to hire a defense attorney was the 400 and some thousand dollars in assets you seized from me. And do we know that that's all they seized from her? Details, I'm sure, will be still coming here. We have the Daily Progress, NBC 29, CBS 19, and Seville right now all reporting this story. Why this story has been such robustly covered by local media is I'm sure Louisa County, the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, sent a press release out announcing the arrest.

This is a story that has many layers to the onion. Why it has layers to the onion is these pop-up markets are happening everywhere. They are happening everywhere. In some cases, the pop-up markets are happening within a short walk of police stations in certain jurisdictions, and I'll leave it at that. I'm curious why, or I'm going to ask this question. Is Don Marie Morris, the 51-year-old Louisa County resident who's facing 160 years in prison,

is she being scapegoated? Or made a lesson for other pop-up owners to learn from. Right. I would say that's scapegoated, right? Scapegoated is more taking the blame for something that someone didn't from. Right. I would say that's scapegoated, right? Scapegoated is more taking the blame for something that someone didn't do. Okay. I'll give you that.

There you go. Some people are saying on Reddit, on Facebook, on Twitter, that good. Shame on her for trying to sell weed and trying to sell boomers to folks of Louisa County. Shame on her.

Others are saying, in particular, the advocacy group, the Virginia Hemp Coalition, that calls this absolute backwards mindset from the small-minded folks of Louisa County. What is your take on this? Like I said, my take is that this seems overly punitive. And yeah, it seems like they may be trying to make this a lesson for other, I guess, other sellers. But it really, I mean, I get the fact that they told her not to do this so

they warned her it clearly says in the coverage the various media outlets that are covering this story that she was warned not to have the farmer's market style pop up of weed and boomers and mushrooms she was warned

she has a lot to lose and a lot on the line, particularly the fact that she has a storefront in Charlottesville, higher education, a storefront in Richmond. Albert Graves is saying she also has a storefront in Zion's Crossroads as well. So she's got a lot of skin in the game here. Albert Graves says it's a BS law in Virginia. You can grow up to four plants and have up to four ounces in your possession,

but yet the government refuses to open recreational sales to legitimate businesses. Imagine if alcohol was held in the same light as marijuana. You can't make it, but you can't buy it. You can make it, but you can't buy it. And then he hashtags moonshine. He says there's another pop-up in Charlottesville that's held weekly right across from where the Charlottesville Police Department fills their vehicles with gas multiple times a day. I know the one he's referencing. There are a handful of pop-ups in the city within walking distance of the police department.

One of them that I have personally patronized, where it's a $10 fee to enter and you walk upstairs and it is a farmer's market for cannabis. A farmer's market for cannabis. You legitimately see out of this farmer's market for cannabis the who's who of Charlottesville coming out. Attorneys, bankers, professors, doctors, white-collar professionals, blue-collar professionals, students and tourists alike. It's essentially the tavern from yesteryear. Okay. I want to highlight this. Dawn Morris broke the law. Yeah. No argument here. she broke the law knowingly broke the law and broke the law after she was warned by Louisa County authorities

that what she was doing was against the law she continued to do it if you poke a rattlesnake and you continue poking a rattlesnake eventually the rattlesnake is going to snap back the rattlesnake snapped back and said, we're snapping back to the tune of 160 years in the slammer. Where you can make an argument on the snapback

is the overreach of the snap. Yeah, agreed. You can say this yields slap on the wrist, this yields warning if it happens again, we go after the full 160. Grace or empathy. Perhaps that grace and empathy would have materialized in Albemarle County and Charlottesville City, where the Commonwealth Attorney's Offices in both Charlottesville and Albemarle County are more of a decriminalized mindset and a second-chance mindset. I'd say it's safe to say.

And on that note, I want to remind the viewers and listeners that Chief Mike Kotchis and Commonwealth's Attorney Joe Plantania will be in studio Wednesday, December 11th, for about a 30- 40 minute interview. I also think Albert Graves makes a point that we are living in this gray area where you're able to grow your own weed, you're able to hold on to your own weed, you're basically able to walk around and smoke your own weed, but you can't commercially sell your weed. You can give your weed to people. I mean, maybe it would have been different if she was selling backpacks in her pop-ups

and the backpacks came with a gift of free whatever you wanted in a baggie. And that's how some of these head shops get around it. You go in and you buy a $35, I'll just put it in perspective, a $35 blue sticker. And as part of that $35 blue sticker, you get handed a Ziploc bag, a sandwich-sized Ziploc bag that has 3.5 grams of cannabis in it. Or you buy a $50 or $100 red sticker, and you got seven grams of cannabis that's given to you for free with your receipt.

There's entirely too much room for interpretation. And I think because there is so much room for interpretation, that there's been a lot of leeway offered to entrepreneurs in this space. Some of them I call friends. This would be a great conversation for David Tricarici to come on the show and have this conversation. Yeah. I think it is. And I back the blue on this program. I do it all the time. You do it all the time. I think Louisa County pursuing 160 years in life in prison for this entrepreneur is a bad look for Louisa's Commonwealth's attorney. Yeah. Respectfully, I'm saying that.

Respectfully. To me, it comes across as justice having taken off the blindfold. And this does not seem like justice is blind. This seems like justice is wanting to say, hey, we don't like you, so we're going to throw the book at you. Albert Graves makes a point that needs to be made. I think this bus was more about the heady boomers, the psychedelic mushrooms, and not the hippie lettuce, the shrubbery, the cabbage, the greenery.

I also agree with that. If Dawn Morris had a pop-up in Louisa County at a storage facility where she offered eight or ten different strands of weed, some Skylar skunk, some Northern Lights, maybe an indica, five or six indicas and five or six sativas, she would probably still be doing this pop-up weed market at a storage facility in Louisa. I will also say this, that at other pop-up facilities around Charlottesville and Alamaro County, the opportunity to purchase psychedelic mushrooms are there. And I'm not trying to blow up any spots talking locations or who's running them

but it's a reality this is another question I have for you if you were on Interstate 64 and the speed limit is 65 miles an hour and 80 cars are going 79 miles an hour, and you're one of the 80, and you get the ticket for going 79 miles an hour in the 65, and the other 79 do not get the ticket for going 19 over the speed limit, are you justifiable in saying, I was in a group of 80 people going 79 in a 65, 14 over the limit, but you only handpicked me to pot me and get me in trouble?

Is that a legitimate argument? Yeah. You think that's a legitimate argument? I don't have that answer. If there's 80, whatever the number is, a group of people that are doing the exact same thing. And they single out one person. And one person is singled out. Are you able to say, hey, all these other people are doing this

and you didn't touch them or single them out? What's up with that? I think there's some, I that? I think there's some... I think there's some... There needs to be some specificity in that argument, but I agree that in a lot of cases, yes. I think you have a good argument that, look, I was just going with the flow of traffic.

And the fact that you were singled out was, you know, probably absurd. Kevin Higgins adds this to the equation. There was a woman convicted of second-degree murder by a Louisa County court. She's facing 43 years out of 20, 24 sentencing. Help this make sense. Say that again. A woman convicted of second degree murder by a Louisa County court and is facing 43 years at a 2024 sentencing. Help this make sense. He's basically saying, how is someone that's doing a pop-up cannabis and boomer market facing 160 years.

And another person, secondary murder, 43 years. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is totally anecdotal, but I read a story recently about someone who had spent like three years in jail because of something like this, and rooming with a guy in jail who is doing five or six months for doing something terrible to a child. There's the pastor in Greene County who's waiting for his day in court on house arrest right now. Who's been driving to get McDonald's. Who's on house arrest and going on coffee breaks and McDonald's runs. Yeah. While on house arrest and begging the court for empathy,

despite facing charges of abusing sexually, allegedly, allegedly, a minor on multiple occasions. Yeah. I... The area of interpretation, if you may, creates uncertainty. And that uncertainty creates a lack of trust and confidence.

If you can face 160 years for a pop-up weed and mushroom market... This is part of the reason why, and I think we have to say it, a lot of people don't trust the police. Well, I mean, I think this is past the police point. Yeah, this is the top cop of Louisa, the Commonwealth attorney. Obviously, the police aren't the ones pressing charges or

they're not sitting in the court as judge or jury. But at the same time, as we've seen in Charlottesville, the cops, the police choose who and what they want to go after at times. I'll take it a step further. I'll take it a step further here. I don't even think, and I don't want to speak for the police. I'm just offering a perspective of speaking to police officers. I don't think the police even want to pursue this type of criminal behavior. I think you're probably right in most cases. I don't think men and women in blue want to arrest people for selling weed. Did she take it too far. With the mushrooms.

Maybe that's what it was. But they don't want to touch weed. You walk in Charlottesville. And Almaro County everywhere. And probably any city in America. And the smell of cannabis. Whether it's right or wrong. Is potent and obvious.

Yeah. 160 years. Yeah. That's crazy. And once we close this topic, we'll close with this. What does this do for her enterprise? What does it do for the location on West Main Street, the location on Zion's Crossroads? What does it do for the location in Richmond? What does it do to the employees, the? What does it do to the employees? The vendors she carries? You go to the place on West Main Street, it is absolutely filled with inventory,

much of it glassware. Very intriguing story. Kevin Yancey, Kevin Higgins, we appreciate your commentary Bill McChesney, Vanessa Parkhill, thank you for watching the show next topic, Judah Wickauer on a Tuesday in downtown Charlottesville the local tax data has been released by the Charlottesville Chamber of Commerce the Chamber of Commerce does a very good job of this

first I give props to the Chamber of Commerce they keep the community informed Chamber of Commerce keeps the community informed. I'm on the listserv, I guess, as a content creator about some of this data that comes out from the Chamber. And in the press release that was sent, which will most certainly turn into a story for the legacy media. The chamber highlights that the first half of 2024, January to June, compares favorably to the same period in 2023. The chamber reports in totality, the locality studied by the Chamber of Commerce collected $1,317,455 more in local retail sales tax in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, an uptick of 4%. Louisa County saw the largest percentage increase of 12.71%. Alamaro County showed a robust 5.25%,

while Charlottesville, Flavana, Green, and Waynesboro showed marginal increases. Marginal increases. The first thing I push back on the sales tax data collection is, is it truly more... Look, when you're a small business owner, gross revenue or top line revenue, sure, we're going to follow gross revenue. But what really matters to the business owner is, how does the revenue you take in and the overhead you have for running the business and taking in that revenue, when you take the revenue you have

and you subtract the overhead you have, whatever's left over is your margin. I would venture to say that the first six months of this year versus the first six months of last year are flat or if not down. And I would venture to say that this 4% increase in the localities across the board is more tied to raising prices or inflationary aspects as opposed to actually making more money if you're a small business owner. Just because your prices go up, yes, the locality is going to collect more money. But are your prices going up at the same clip that all your overhead is going up? Your labor, your cost of goods, everything else that you need to run your business. Any story can be positioned when it comes to data.

Any story. Yeah. This will be a story in legacy media. We'll go to Twitter and Deep Throat. He's got some commentary. He says, to your point about cost, we can compare revenue growth to inflation. Core PCE in the first half of 2024 was like 2.8%. So Charlottesville is underperforming PCE.

I also want to highlight the growth of Louisa. Louisa is attracting, is becoming a draw for the middle class that's being pushed out of charlottesville and albemarle and the middle class that was making a hefty wage two income earning households are pushed out of charlottesville and albemarle and they're heading to outer counties that are still close to their jobs and one of those counties is louisa. Louisa has an abundance of quality housing, specifically the Spring Creek neighborhood, one of the largest neighborhoods in central Virginia, a gated community with amenities that's on the interstate and very short proximity,

close proximity to Charlottesville and Albemarle County. The tailwinds for Louisa County are obvious and significant. You also want to highlight what's happening in Fluvanna. Fluvanna basically has very little job and commercial opportunity, business opportunity. That's why Fluvanna's flat. There's very little business opportunity there. I'm very intrigued why Waynesboro is flat. That's one of the outliers for me. Why is Waynesboro not have a more significant uptick on its tax revenue collection when we know Waynesboro's population is increasing

with middle-class Charlottesville and Almar County driving and heading and moving there. That's the one that stood out to me. Albemarle County at 5.25%. Frankly speaking, Albemarle is going to continue to be strong. The wealthy choosing to move to Albemarle County and jobs continuing or commercial activity continuing to be present in Albemarle County. Next headline, what do you got, Judah Wickower? Next headline, we have Scottsville mayor scraping it by with a hair.

Lower thirds on screen? Yep. Yep. A six-point vote margin? I mean, I think the... Six votes determine the town of Scottsville's mayor? Is this his second term? I think the real story here is that there were only, what, 250 votes?

Well, it's a small town. What is the town of Scottsville's population like? It's under 1,000. It's under small town. What is the town of Scottsville's population like? It's under 1,000. It's under 1,000. Let's see. Town of Scottsville's population. 537, 2023. Okay, that's fair.

So you had half the community voting. You had half the community voting. Yeah. All right, that's fair. I mean, half the community voting, and some of those people are under 18 and can't vote. Yeah. So 537, the population for Scottsville in 2023.

And how many people voted? What was the total vote count? 150? 250? Yeah. So half the population, and when you discount minors, it's more than half. That's fair. A second term for the mayor of Scottsville

this puts in perspective of literally every vote counts six vote difference for the town of Scottsville I think it's great that they have two candidates that people feel so strongly about that the vote was that close. Absolutely unbelievable.

And you talk to some people in Scottsville. We talked to a lot of them. A lot of them listened to the program. A lot of folks would say it's running just fine. Apparently half of them agree. 128 of them. Yeah. What did you make with the next lower third of ranked choice voting being used to select the Charlottesville Christmas tree name?

They want to get people used to it. Spruce Lee beats Boots with the Fur. Oatmeal the Third and Treeler Swift. I mean, I think they picked the right name out of the four, but it's just, it's funny. And Oatmeal the Third, I don't know how that one even made it onto the list. Boots with the Fur,

a little tip of the cap to Flow Rider, and an iconic song. How old is that song? By Flow Rider? I mean, is that song 15 years old? Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah. How would you pronounce it? Flo Rida? Oh my gosh, please stop. What? I just cringed when you said that. That is not the right pronunciation.

Okay. I'm sorry you cringed because I didn't know how to pronounce some, what, pop star? A rapper, I would say. I'd say he's a rapper. What would be a better moniker for the Charlottesville Christmas tree? Oh, man. I mean, they've got to pick one every year, so it's not like this year has to be the best ever. I can't believe they use a ranked choice voting for the Charlottesville Christmas tree selection,

the moniker of the Charlottesville Christmas tree. What would be a better one? Oh, man. Do you have any? The ones I have, I think, are going to ruffle some feathers in Charlottesville. The hilarious aspect of this is the rank choice voting to pick the tree.

I want to first give some props for having the tree, for naming the tree, for getting votes for the tree. I mean, how many votes? Sean had some reporting on this. More than 750 people voted for this. I'd like to see that number a little bit higher. Spruce Lee is not a bad one.

Obviously, a reference to your boy, Bruce. Matthew McConaughey. Matthew McConaughey, Matthew McConaughey tree that's a good one I like that one if we're going after celebrities there's got to be some good ones

I like the pop culture reference right there I was going to do a reference when it came to one of our elected officials I think the tree should be named after somebody in the Charlottesville area an elected official or some kind of after somebody in the Charlottesville area, an elected official or some kind of standout in the Charlottesville city area. That could be a list for a different day. We could poke some fun at them. Some of them listen and watch the show. I do want to close with this. Michael Pine. Oh, that's really good

that was clever Michael Pine a play for Michael Payne yeah yeah I think that's very good I mean you can obviously play on Fraser Fir

Scott's Pine Douglas Fir Blue Spruce Black Hill Spruce White Pine I mean there's so many plays on that with some of the counselors close on this and you can put me on a one-shot.

This came up during the Jerry and Jerry show. Jerry Ratcliffe has a good column on jerryratcliffe.com about the difficulties of rebuilding the Virginia football team. And I put it succinctly on the show today. More than half of the Virginia active roster has exhausted its eligibility. More than half of the roster no longer has eligibility to play college football. Think about that. Tony Elliott has openly said we cannot build through the transfer portal like other schools

because of the academic requirements here at UVA. So we mainly have to focus on academic institutions of high pedigree, like the Ivy League schools, to get kids in through the transfer portal through UVA. Tony Elliott has the least amount of wins out of all the power coaches in college football over the last three years. The athletic director is interviewing for other jobs. The fan base wants the offensive coordinator fired, the offensive line coach fired,

and the special teams coach fired, the head coach fired. The stadium is at 25,000 people capacity each game, and it seats 60,000 plus. You've gone 23, you've lost 23 of your last 25 games against your arch rival, Virginia Tech. 23 of the last 25. Your national signing day, which is this week, you have a very meager class of commitments. And the expectation is some of those kids will decommit. The face of your football team, Anthony Calandria, just announced his transfer. Your best defensive player, Jonas Sanker, doesn't have any eligibility left. Your best wide receiver, Malachi Fields, doesn't have any eligibility left.

You don't have any running backs. You don't have any offensive linemen. You got very little money for the NIL and the pot to offer players to come here. This is the lowest point for Virginia football since 1981 when George Walsh took over as the head football coach here at the University of Virginia. 43 years, we are at the lowest point, and we no longer can say, well, at least we have basketball and Tony Bennett. We're a basketball school. We win ACC titles on the hardwood and compete for national championships on the hardwood, on the basketball court. That's not the case anymore. You are looking at arguably the lowest point from an engagement and the highest point from an apathy standpoint

for the fan base in 43 years. 43 years. And everything I just offered to you was fact and not commentary base. It was based on fact. Let's see what happens on these Board of Visitors meetings Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week. Because I can assure you this will be a topic discussed.

Judah Wickauer, Jerry Miller, the I Love Civo Show on a Tuesday. So long. Thank you.