The Ohio Senate made changes to the voter approved marijuana law that now goes to the Ohio House.

Cleveland Municipal Court has been closed all week due to a cyberattack, and Hudson based Joann announced all of its craft stores will close and hundreds of local jobs will be cut.

Ideas is next.

Hello, and welcome to IDEAS.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you for joining us.

The second major cyberattack targeting a public institution in Cleveland shut down Cleve Municipal Court this week.

As with the ransomware attack that crippled city hall over the summer, officials aren't saying much.

The House Senate has passed a series of restrictions on the recreational marijuana law approved by voters in 2023, saying tweaks were needed to assure public health and safety.

Opponents, including Senate Democrats, say it's subverting the will of voters.

It moves now to the Ohio House.

Akron City Council rejected the mayor's plan to spend more than $600,000 to bring in a national consultant to review police use of force policies.

Council members said the price tag was just too high.

But the mayor says the price is worth it because the issue is life and death and Akron deserves the best.

And Jo-Ann stores are all closing.

Last week the company announced a major downsizing, but a bankruptcy sale since then means the business headquartered in Hudson is soon gone.

Joining me to discuss these and other stories this week from Ideastream Public Media, criminal justice reporter Matt Richman and local government reporter Abbie Marshall.

In Columbus, the sovereign of the statehouse news bureau, Karen Kasler.

Let's get ready to roundtable.

Republicans in the Ohio Senate passed new restrictions on legal recreational marijuana sales this week, saying adjustments were needed to protect the health and safety of the public.

Democrats who opposed the changes said legislators who are against legal pot were undoing the will of voters who approved recreational marijuana in 2023.

Karen, it was 23 to 9 Democrats trying to make ten amendments to sb 56.

All were rejected, right?

Yeah, and I think that what you just described there is pretty much exactly the split the party line split that we saw in this vote, where you've got Republicans who have said that, yes, voters did approve this law in 2023.

And remember, it was approved as a law, not as a constitutional amendment.

So lawmakers do have the option to make changes or completely repeal it.

And so they decided to make these changes.

They started making these changes in 2023, even before the recreational marijuana law took effect.

The law didn't go through then in the law in that session.

So now they're trying this again.

Now, this is the Senate.

You can still go over to the House.

The House is apparently working on its own version of this.

But what this would do is basically ban weed smoking in public and it would also limit home grow two instead of a dozen plants to six plants or less.

And it would also change some of the THC concentration of products that are offered in dispensaries and cap the concentration of THC in those products.

So this is just part of the process that Republicans have wanted to do for a while of changing that law.

One of the big changes was the number of plants per household, so six rather than 12.

I also saw that you can't share it, You can grow it, but you can't, I don't know.

Give some of your brother.

Yeah.

You can't walk over across the street to your neighbor and offer some, I guess, into enforcement is a real question here.

I think a lot of folks have been wondering how in the world do they make sure that you are only growing six plants?

If you're growing them, say, in your basement or whatever?

So, you know, these but these are these are exactly the kind of concerns that people who wanted to see this put in the law are saying, hey, we voted for this and now you're making these changes.

And what about the idea that you can't smoke outdoors?

I wonder if that means can you not sit on your deck or your porch and have a joint?

I mean, I think it's a matter of if if it becomes problematic, then police can be called.

You can't sit in the public park and smoke.

It kind of follows a lot of the same regular tobacco smoking laws, but it's a little stricter.

And this is something that Republicans have said all along.

They are very concerned about that they've traveled to other states where recreational marijuana is legal and the pot smoke is pervasive.

And they said they didn't want that to happen in Ohio.

And so this is an effort, I guess, to try to push back on that.

I think you'd have to mobilize all of the highway patrol at Blossom if you were going to enforce that.

And anyway, there was also a change to the or at least a cap on the number of dispensaries at 350.

What's interesting about that is Ohio already has approved 342.

So we're not going to see a whole lot more than what we have now or at least that that's approved now.

Right.

And so this has really put some limits here.

And again, this is not a done deal.

This isn't the Senate.

The House has its own proposal that it's working on, apparently.

So I don't know if these two bil configured and try to to compromise legislation to be worked on.

But certainly Republicans have decided that this is something they want to move forward when they didn't get a chance to do it last time around because it just didn't move.

Well, Senate Republicans said they wanted to do that last year.

It didn't move forward because the House speaker wasn't for it.

But there's a big difference this year.

The person who was the House speaker was the head of the Senate back then.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was Senate President Matt Hoffman, now House speaker.

He's been very clear that he opposes this recreational marijuana law.

He's got some people in his own caucus, though, that are very concerned about this because there is a little bit of party line crossover here in the sense that there are Republicans who support legalized marijuana.

The classic example that a lot of people will bring up is Jamie Calendar from northeast Ohio, who actually cut the ribbon on one of the dispensaries when it started selling recreational marijuana last year.

And so there are some Republicans who support the law as it passed.

There are some Democrats who have some concerns about some things.

And one of the other things that was taken out of this bill that's going to be discussed in the budget process is the tax structure.

And the Republicans have wanted to increase the tax, the the excise tax on marijuana sales, not just the local tax, but also the excise tax there, the state tax.

And then to direct that money to go to somewhere else, because the law prescribed to go to a fund that would be set up to help people who had had convictions for marijuana law violations, the Republicans have wanted to take that money and instead put it toward the nine state suicide hotline and county jails and police training and so it looks like that's going to be into the state budget rather than this law.

The House speaker now is Matt Hoffman, the senator in that push.

This is Steve Hoffman.

What's the relation?

Cousins.

So and Steve Hoffman has been talking about this for a while.

One of the things that was expected to be added at some point in this process and maybe will be in the House is regulation on Delta eight, which is the governor Mike DeWine calls it intoxicating hemp or diet weed or there's a lot of names for it, but it's unregulated and it's sold, not dispensaries, but it can be in stores and gas stations.

And there's a real worry that kids are getting a hold of it and that it really should be regulated.

So that's not in the Senate bill, but it's thought that that could be in the House bill.

One of the things that made me sit up when I was reading the story was the idea that the THC concentration, we noted, is going to stay the same, the potency at 70% for vaping and oils and tinctures and that kind of thing.

But the Division of Cannabis Control has the discretion to go up to 90% to make it even stronger, which seems to run counter to what the Senate was pushing for on these other changes.

Is that because there's competition right over the border and people might go get better stuff somewhere?

That's my guess is that it gives the states some flexibility to decide based on what the market does and everything like that.

But once again, it's it's lawmakers deciding this and saying that instead of what the voters approved, we're going to make some changes to that.

We're going to make it more, more pure, which is what the industry has talked about, not the level of concentration, but the purity of it.

And we're going to do that for public safety.

So it really does come down to the struggle of whether you believe that it's okay for the law to have passed the way it was and that that's what voters wanted and that other states have done it and it's fine.

Or if you're really concerned about the long term effects here and you'd like to see more rules.

A cyber threat shuttered Cleveland Municipal Court all week.

It'll remain closed until further notice.

Abbie.

Again, no comment.

But of what it happened at City College, City Hall is any indication someone is holding the court system hostage for money?

Well, yes.

And government entities are usually pretty tight lipped on this because they say that they don't want, you know, the hackers to know the inside details of what they might know.

But, yeah, ransomware is basically a hacker infiltrates a system.

It's a form of malware where they say, give us money and you get back your data.

City hall said, You know, we're not going to negotiate with these people and they often bring in outside help to help deal with that problem.

Well, you wonder whether they did negotiate and whether they did pay because you don't get an answer.

And a couple of weeks later, the problem resolves.

So I've read some research, some experts, one of which is with the Northeast Ohio based cybersecurity company trusted SEQ that says essentially these kinds of organizations, city hall and municipal court, are easy targets because they're insured.

They need the information back because it's so vital to operations.

This kind of thing happens.

Right.

And I did a similar story last summer when this was all going on, where I spoke to cybersecurity experts about if cities like Cleveland are a bullseye for these kinds of attacks.

And the reason, too, is that often they have, you know, lower when you talk about going after like a tech system or hospitals or things like that, cities are often understaffed.

They might have outdated equipment or resources.

And really sometimes all it takes is to for one person in the city to click on a bad link and they can they can get in.

And cities again often have really sensitive information and data that people are worried about getting out and the city's obviously going to want back immediately.

They called in the cavalry, too.

And it's not just the tech experts at municipal court that are working on this.

They've got others helping.

Yeah, some news outlets are reporting that the Ohio National Guard and the Ohio Cyber Cyber Reserve are responding similarly.

Last summer, they brought in external resources.

They were kind of tight lipped at that time of who was working on it.

And I think that there is some the concern about revealing too many details because we have not really received any details or responses.

And it's really interesting because even if you call over there, Wayne just disconnects so we can't really get much information.

Well, luckily, Matt, you still have county court at the state court in the county, and you have the federal courts.

You can still dig around for documents.

Yeah, there's still plenty going.

Okay, good.

Akron City Council this week rejected a proposal to hire a national firm to review the police department's use of force policy.

Matt, City Council voted 9 to 4 to reject this, saying essentially it was too costly.

So $640,000 was a lot.

Yeah.

In one case, one of the council members pointed out that, you know, with all the stuff going on in the federal government that it's not clear what's going to happen with the budget in Akron in the next year or two or three.

And then the council president, Margaret Somerville, who had been a who had originally been a sponsor, said they're talking to sort of her her constituents.

They raised concerns that this was too much money.

You know, it's an interesting approach because it is you know, right now we know that the federal government's not interested in starting new, new consent decrees, that that's not a priority for the Department of Justice.

And this is sort of like a like a consent decree late where they're going over policies on use of force, which was central to the Cleveland consent decree and trying to revise those and then trying to create accountability systems based on those policies.

But doing it, you know, in a clearly defined period of time with a clear price tag sort of in and out.

If you did get under a consent decree, enter into one which Cleveland did in 2015, there's not $640,000, if you count that over the years.

We're talking big money.

Yeah.

And it's it's open ended.

So, I mean, it goes into court.

It involves the Department of Justice.

All these other parties have to sign off to say that you, as a city, have done what you needed to do.

And you know, that can go on for a very long time.

The mayor's, though, is still saying we need to do this, that it's important, it's life and death.

He says the police chief is on board.

What's the path then, if council has voted against this, Does he just keep picking away at it?

Well, yeah, he has said that, you know, he's going to go to the community and kind of a lot of the talking to the council is about, you know, my my constituents are saying this is too expensive.

Well, you know, it sounds like he's going to bring forward more of the committee members who say that this is absolutely worth it and it's necessary.

And he has said that, you know, it is one of the most serious problems facing Akron and the Akron Police Department is the use of force.

So the council members are saying, okay, well, then find somebody cheaper.

And and he's saying, no, this is the firm we decided we want.

Yeah, that's an interesting I mean, you know, the the the police is a national law firm consulting firm and then 21 C.P.

solution and is a is a group I actually two of the previous consent decree monitors in Cleveland are part of 21 C.P.

solutions.

There are a couple members who are on the monitor team in Cleveland right now, so I don't know who you know, if there is a state or local group that has this kind of expertise that does this work the way that these groups do.

sewing enthusiast scrap bookers and knitters, not to mention thousands of employees.

And the city of Hudson are mourning the announcement that Hudson based Jo-Ann will be closing all of its doors and holding going out of business sales And Abby, it was last week that we were talking about how 500 of the stores nationwide might close and we're looking at which one's in Ohio now the whole thing is going to be gone.

Yeah, I mean, I think that what happened basically is, is you see this huge boom in crafting during the pandemic.

You don't have anything to do.

I guess I'll just stay home and craft.

I know I did.

And I'm a I've always been a big crafter, but the pandemic ended.

We got busy again.

People have things to do.

It just spell trouble.

And then retail is just a tough, tough industry right now.

So we're looking at 850 stores to close across the country, about 1100 layoffs here in Ohio, mostly in Hudson.

Yeah, that's that's tough to to handle.

And they add competition to Hobby Lobby and online and retailers and all of those things.

The question is the impact that this is going to have.

You mentioned 1100 layoffs, mostly at the headquarters in Hudson.

So locally we're going to feel this more acutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

So that's very unfortunate for northeast Ohio, but we'll see what kind of comes into place and if some small businesses will get a boost as well.

Some small business crafting stores.

And you mentioned Hobby Lobby, Michaels, things like that.

So people will be able to go get their crafting supplies somewhere.

A 41 year old woman died Sunday after being found unresponsive in her cell at the Cuyahoga County Jails Mental Health Unit.

Matt, we've talked about this for years, the problem with deaths in the jail.

There was a report by the U.S. marshal about the terrible conditions in the jail and they needed to improve.

Part of the thing that's motivating this huge, expensive project to build a new jail complex in Garfield Heights.

Do we know anything in this case about what happened with this particular detainee?

So, you know, last I checked on the medical examiner's office, there's no cause of death.

It sounds like it was a medical condition.

And it sounds like, you know, they were looking for a bed in a inpatient psychiatric hospital for her for months.

And she was in the jail that whole time.

That's what the difficulty is, is that they know where she needed to be, the help that she needed to get what she was being shuffled in and out of jail as a result of the fact that they didn't have a place for her.

Yeah.

And this was you know, this was waiting for her case to move through the system.

So it was basically there was a decision by the court that she was not competent to stand trial and needed inpatient care.

They couldn't find a bed for.

And it's you know, that's one of the really sad things that she shouldn't have been or, you know, shouldn't have been detained or there should have been an alternative to a detaining her at all.

And, you know, this happens a lot there.

Courts are often, you know, finding that people need psychiatric care before going through the court process.

And so these beds are largely it's like 90% in northeast Ohio taken up by judges or people who need that care before trial.

So we've we've been talking about this for years.

Our member of the Greater Cleveland Congregations, which were protesting the funding of the CU.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry.

It's now called Rockit Arena.

But back then, we're protesting those same things.

And one of the things that was being pushed and I thought was going to happen was more behavioral health.

This exactly this kind of thing.

That's a diversion from jail.

Yeah.

And Governor DeWine has also proposed getting more more beds in in northeast Ohio.

You know, it is just really, really sad that, you know, from from what I have heard, there were clear indications that she was, you know, suffering some serious medical conditions that they just weren't able to take care of in the jail.

There's a report from policy Matters.

Ohio found that between 2019 and 2023, involuntary commitments, involuntary commitments at the state psychiatric hospitals dropped by two thirds, in part because more than 90% of the beds to those hospitals were taken by people like Wade, as you mentioned, sent by a judge.

So we've got a we've got a capacity problem.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then the the involuntary commitments are, you know, really serious cases of people who are really having, you know, serious mental health issues and they are kind of picked up in the street or they come in somewhere asking for for help.

And, you know, in that case, they go into a hospital that can only hold them, you know, 24 to 72 hours.

And if they can't find a bed, then it really becomes, you know, you send it back out.

One other issue at the jail, the county made a change saying it will no longer take individuals unless they're charged.

But in Cleveland, you often have people that are sent to the jail, not yet charged because police are still working on it.

Why is the jail making this policy change?

What do they say is the issue?

Well, they they seem to have had a sort of been struck by the conscience and to say that, you know, nobody should ever be brought to jail if you're not being charged with a crime, which seems very reasonable, basic.

You know, there is a bigger dispute going on between the county and the city.

The county doesn't feel like the city is paying nearly as much as they should for the people that are housed in the jail.

The city stopped, you know, shut down its corrections department in 2016, 2018, around then.

And we're just sending everybody, the county this, you know, the is trying to say to the city you are going to have to stop depending on us if you don't start paying us more.

So part of this might be to say, you know, this group of people, if you want to keep holding them, you're going to need to figure something else out.

But you just mentioned and it's a it's a fair point.

You shouldn't be sent to jail unless you're charged with a crime.

Apparently, that's happening a lot, specifically from the city of Cleveland.

What's the justification that's offered for that?

From from what they've said publicly that, it's a it's a public safety issue.

They they brought up cases of domestic violence.

You know, an officer if there's a charge of domestic violence and there's, you know, clearly something happened or an allegation.

They have to remove the person from the home.

They can't just leave him there That night after whatever happened happened.

So, you know, they're saying we might not be ready to charge this person with domestic violence, but we would need to get him out of the home.

That was the example that was brought up.

But, you know, they even in that case, you can charge them.

But if the you know, as often happens, the whoever the domestic partner is decides that they want don't want to go ahead with charges, then they could be dropped at a later point.

So I don't know if I am sure about that.

That's exactly right.

Well, it's it's fair.

I think what they're saying is it's for safety.

If you if you need to take somebody out of a domestic violence situation, you're going to charge on or you think you are hold them in the jail in the meanwhile.

But but the county is saying unless you've got a charge or really maybe what they're saying is unless you pay more, you're not going to keep them here.

You know, capacity will go up.

It sounds like when we do see that new construction in Garfield Heights as well.

Yeah, if it goes to the full the full sort of potential for that new new jail would be 2400 beds.

Right now, it's built for like 1700, but it could go up quite a bit.

Larry Dolan, the owner of the Cleveland Guardians, died this week at the age of 94.

Larry Dolan was a Cleveland Heights native, served in the U.S. Marine Corps, was inducted into the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.

The commissioner of the major Major League Baseball said in a statement he strongly believed in mentoring young people and using the Guardians as a way to impact greater Cleveland Carron The heyday era of the of the Cleveland Guardians, and previous to that Cleveland Indians is is Larry Dolan over the last many years.

Oh, absolutely.

I mean, 2016, it didn't end right at the World Series, but, you know, we were there.

We've been to the American League playoffs many times under him.

We've got the pitching on the team has been amazing over the last couple of years.

We got four Cy Young Award winners that we've had.

I mean, at the All-Star Game back in 2019.

I mean, there were just some really wonderful moments that Larry Dolan brought Cleveland Indians, then Cleveland Guardians fans.

And of course, the name change has been a big deal for a lot of people, whether they oppose it or support it, it's a big deal.

And so I just I expect a really lovely tribute to him on opening day on April 8th.

He's done a lot for the team.

What a gentleman.

And it seems quite different from his brother, Charles, who was the Cablevision guy, also died recently and owned teams in New York.

And the thing about Larry Dolan really was how he brought himself from being an assistant prosecuting attorney in Georgia County to then becoming someone whose family could own a major League Baseball franchise.

Yeah, really an interesting story.

And Matt Dolan, who's a part owner, a former state senator, also a former prosecutor, following kind of along in the same path here.

It's just a really I think it's interesting to think about and to think about that, the idea that somehow you might be able to own a team, I don't know that those days are even possible when they are because of the way that the way that things have gone.

But I think, you know, it was it's it was tough to follow like Dick Jacobs and you know, this is but we've had some really, really wonderful times in the last 20 some years under his ownership.

If I meet my goal of saving $950 million by September, then maybe I can be a part a team.

That would be that would be great.

The 97th Academy Awards is Sunday.

Have you seen all the best picture nominees?

Most watchers agree the prize will come down to abc.

That is a nora, the brutalist or conclave.

Those appear to be the frontrunners.

But unlike last year when oppenheimer was a lock for the biggest awards, there's potential for surprises on oscar night.

Here's a good trivia question I'm going to ask you guys.

The Axios Cleveland newsletter reminded me of this today.

The Cleveland area is home to a best actor and actress Oscar winner.

Who are they?

Any guesses?

Carolyn Berry.

Halle Berry is the best actress.

That's correct.

Monster's Ball.

I.

Good question.

Okay.

Come on, old blue eyes.

You know, you got these beautiful blue eyes.

You you eat a salad dressing.

Paul Newman.

Paul Newman's Are you gay?

Oh, okay, exactly.

Born in Cleveland Heights, grew up in Shaker Heights, and Halle Berry.

Born in Cleveland.

Grew up in Oakwood.

That's a little bit of trivia.

But the question is, did you guys see all the movies?

No, I'm a musical girlie.

I've only seen Wicked.

I'm really behind this year.

Okay.

No, no, no.

My only analysis is they should not give any awards to movies that are over 3 hours.

Okay, well, that's I shouldn't have.

Or what about.

What about you, Karen?

Have you guys been bingeing?

Saw Wicked?

I saw Conclave and I saw Dune two.

I'm a European person, so I think conclave was really, really neat.

Conclave was a good movie.

And Nora is one that I saw.

We were planning to go see one tomorrow.

And I can't remember what it is.

The family arranges these things and we're also the brutalist.

I think we're starting tonight and maybe finishing if we watch it all the way through till Sunday, just before that.

Monday on The Sound of Ideas on 89 seven KSU, we'll bring you another installment of our quarterly series Talking Foreign Policy.

This episode examines the environmental war crimes happening in Ukraine.

Russian forces have been accused of killing Black Sea dolphins, destroying a critical dam and kidnaping rare wildlife.

I'm Mike McIntyre.

Thank you so much for watching.

And stay safe.