CLEVELAND, Ohio – When it came to deciding on an emergency health order to ban intoxicating hemp, a Franklin County judge chose commerce over kids.
We’re talking about the decision on Today in Ohio.
Listen online here.
Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with editorial board member Lisa Garvin, impact editor Leila Atassi and content director Laura Johnston.
You’ve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what we’re thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up here: https://joinsubtext.com/chrisquinn.
Here’s what we’re asking about today:
It’s not just lawmakers working to keep a pipeline of intoxicating drugs open for children. Now a judge has gotten into the act. What is the latest on this mind-boggling story?
President Donald Trump keeps acting like he’s a king, not a president, and people who believe in our system of government keep staging rallies in protest. What do we know about the protests planned for this weekend?
Every kid in Cleveland, it seems, knows how easy it is to get guns in Ohio, as police keep recovering them when they make arrests. Turns out that people in other states might know, too. How many guns bought in Ohio have been used in crimes in other states?
I laughed out loud when I read this story. Why are Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek’s constituents flooding his office with phone calls?
It’s a noble effort by Ohio’s Democratic lawmakers, but they are so seriously outnumbered that you wonder whether this is worth their time. What are they doing to try to protect Ohioans in need?
Is Rolling Stone magazine backing down from the story it published about the machinations of the family of Cleveland native Eric Carmen, the late pop superstar?
What kind of a cretin does it take to terrorize an Amish family with stun guns and death threats? What horrendous crime took place in Geauga County last week?
Now that Justin Bibb and the Browns have settled their differences, what is the timetable for building a covered stadium in Brook Park, and are all the financial questions answered?
More Today in Ohio
The chess game ends, as the Haslams and Bibb make stadium deal. How many moves were bluffs?
The naughty puppy: Is Tim Ryan just trying to get attention by waffling about governor’s race
DeWine’s hemp ban exposes lawmakers protecting a pipeline of intoxicating hemp to children
We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here.
Do you get your podcasts on Spotify? Find us here.
RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.
On PodParadise, find us here.
And on PlayerFM, we are here.
Read the automated transcript below. Because it’s a computer-generated transcript, it contains many errors and misspellings.
Chris Quinn (00:01.324)
I don’t know that I’d ever heard the words intoxicating hemp before about a month ago, but man, do we talk about it a lot now. It’s Today in Ohio, the news podcast discussion from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. I’m Chris Quinn here with Laura Johnston, Lisa Garvin and Courtney Astolfi. And Laura, it’s not just lawmakers working to keep that pipeline of intoxicating hemp open for kids. Now a judge has gotten into the act. What’s the latest on this mind boggling story?
Laura (00:30.873)
Right. So it’s Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Carl Iwany. And he issued a temporary restraining order, takes effect immediately. So that idea that Tuesday was going to be the day that you had to clear all the shelves of all the THC products. You don’t have to. You get two weeks and you can’t argue that back. So at least there’s two weeks here before they decide on the merits of this lawsuit, whether DeWine has a right for this public health emergency to take all of the products off the shelves and cease.
sales. The order was set to last for at least 90 days. But what the plaintiffs are saying, and it’s a bunch of companies within the hemp industry, is that there is no state definition in the law about what intoxicating hemp is. guess like you, Chris, they’ve never heard that term before. So in the law, we know that cannabis products that have, you know,
Any THC levels higher than 0.3 % is considered to be marijuana. And so if you’re less than that, that’s not marijuana, but we don’t have a level stated for the dangerous intoxicating him.
Chris Quinn (01:43.634)
it seems pretty clear. If the THC is coming from hemp instead of marijuana, it’s intoxicating hemp. What surprises me about the judge’s ruling here is the judge says his order can hurt these companies. And so I want to hold it until we can debate the merits. But what the wine is saying is this hemp stuff is hurting children. And I would think that a judge in weighing who the danger is greater to kids getting hold of
Laura (01:56.797)
Mm-hmm.
Laura (02:05.64)
Mm-hmm.
Chris Quinn (02:12.514)
dangerous intoxicating drugs that nobody in the right mind would think they should have versus these companies that have created a niche for themselves in kind of a nebulous semi-legal area. The judge went with the companies, just like that legislator we talked about yesterday. It’s like, where are the people that care about the kids? The judge could just as easily have said, you know what, I’m gonna let this go because I wanna protect the kids and we’ll go through the court process.
Instead, she’s protecting the people selling this stuff and marketing it to children. I don’t get it. I just don’t get this judge’s ruling and I imagine and it’s not appealable, right? You can’t go to an appeals court. Yeah.
Laura (02:50.865)
Right, you cannot appeal. No, because it’s an emergency and it only lasts for two weeks. if I don’t think they’ll settle a lawsuit in two weeks, obviously there’ll probably be a hearing, but then they’ll have to have another hearing if they have another emergency stop to this law. You know, I automatically thought this judge was a Republican, but I looked it up and he is a Democrat. So that actually surprises me.
But he’s saying, hey, lawmakers, you need to take additional action to determine the appropriate scope of the comprehensive hemp regulation, which I don’t think anybody disagrees with. But the legislators didn’t do their job. DeWine brought this up, said this is harmful to children. He showed the packaging. looked literally like nerds that appeals to kids. And they did nothing. So DeWine felt like he was backed into a corner. And he put out this emergency. And he’ve already gotten the
Chris Quinn (03:20.686)
No.
Laura (03:42.739)
The legislators saying we’re pushing back, mean, we don’t see a lot of people saying, okay, taking this up right now, we’re going to get this law passed. It’s a first priority.
Chris Quinn (03:50.158)
He started this campaign 18 months ago. The legislature has had tons of time now to fix this and they won’t. So, DeWine takes this extraordinary measure to say, I got to protect the children because the legislature won’t. The legislature is picking the people profiting off of the stuff going to kids rather than the kids. And now a judge is doing the same thing. And the judge could just as easily have said, I got to side with the children here. Let’s go to court.
Laura (04:17.553)
Right. Better to be safe than sorry while we figure this out. Yeah.
Chris Quinn (04:20.206)
Yeah, I just, if you got to pick somebody to protect, I think the automatic fallback is the kids. And yet we have a legislature and now a judiciary that doesn’t do it. Amazing story. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. President Donald Trump keeps acting like he’s a king, not a president. And people who believe in our system of government keep staging rallies and protests. Courtney, what do we know about the protests planned for this weekend, which by the way, is looking to be an incredibly beautiful weekend.
High 70s might even hit 80s.
Courtney (04:52.6)
Yeah, this second round of no Kings protest, you know, against president Donald Trump and the policies he’s rolled out is coming to Northeast Ohio and really all across the country on Saturday. There’s more than a dozen events planned in this corner of the state. And there’s just countless across the country here. Now we know back during that first round of no Kings protest back in June, that drew thousands across Ohio and that round.
you know, kind of was set off by that birthday military parade that Trump held. This next round is looking, you know, more focused on some of the policies we’ve seen over the summer and in the months since. So you look at things like the mass layoffs of federal employees, this ramping up of the ICE deportation sweeps, and then the deployment, of course, of the National Guard into US cities. That’s kind of more of the flavor of this round. And one organizer we talked to down in Medina,
said that the message here is less about partisan politics and more about what she described as executive overreach. She said this isn’t about red or blue, it’s about people concerned for democracy.
Chris Quinn (06:01.708)
I’m a little bit surprised that they keep targeting Trump because you’re not going to stop Trump. But we have a tricameral system of government that’s supposed to be checks and balances, which is completely failing. Congress is knuckled under to anything Trump says. There’s not a single group in Congress that has any standing that’s saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s not how we work. We’re in control of the budget. We’re in control of these things. We pass the laws. You carry them out. Nothing. just
do whatever he says and salute them and click their heels. And the judiciary, the Supreme Court, every time they get a chance to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, you are way overstepping your bounds, they don’t. And so we have this out of control, wannabe king, and the checks that we built into the system of government completely failing, yet the protests are aimed pretty much at Trump.
Courtney (06:54.616)
Yeah, I’m not quite sure what to say about that phenomenon other than, I mean, you know how folks feel about their congressional representatives. Largely the American people dislikes Congress in general, right? But when it comes to their representatives, they’re on board with them. I wonder if part of the dynamic is back to that common trope. But as far as local protests go, we’re seeing these all across the region yet again. I mean, of course, Cleveland, Akron, but places like
Alleria, Cuyahoga Falls, Parma, Medina, Solon. It’s really widespread again.
Lisa Garvin (07:30.171)
I really hope that they take a page from the Portland protesters who are trying to defuse any allegations of violence by wearing cute costumes. I thought that was a great idea.
Chris Quinn (07:39.246)
Yeah, it would it would make for really bad video if the the federal forces starting to be violent with people dressed in cute childlike costumes. It’s a you’re right. It’s very very smart idea. Look the other thing that’s starting to push back on Trump even people in his base like Joe Rogan are pushing back very hard now on what he’s doing with immigration. I they are
going after grandmas who’ve been in the country for 20 years who’ve done nothing wrong. mean, it’s the overreach just so Trump can get to some number is causing no end of human suffering. And people that have supported him are now criticizing him for the inhumanity of his administration. And I think that’ll help too. You’re listening to Today in Ohio.
Every kid in Cleveland, it seems, know how easy it is to get guns in Ohio. Cleveland police recovered three guns from a bunch of juveniles when they arrested them for breaking into dozens and dozens and dozens of cars over the weekend. But it turns out, Lisa, that people in other states might know too how easy it is to get guns in Ohio. How many guns from Ohio have been used in crimes in other states?
Lisa Garvin (08:53.665)
Yeah, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have been investigating this gun trafficking ring that’s been allegedly run by one Ohio man and a New Jersey man and woman. They’ve been looking into this since 2023. So these three are currently charged in Camden, New Jersey, federal court with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. So 29 guns bought at several different Ohio stores, including in Columbus, Geneva, Hebron, Parma and Ashtabula.
ended up in Atlantic County, New Jersey for sale on the street. And this happened between August, 2022 and June of 2023. One of the guns that was bought in 2022 was used two years later in April, 2024, killing a 15 year old Elijah Kellam in Dover, Delaware. Two other guns were used in a 2023 carjacking in Atlantic city, New Jersey.
Among those charged, the Ohio man is 29 year old Justin Luker of Bryan, Ohio, and then Jasmine Osorio and John Griffith Jr. of New Jersey. They’re all released on bond. Their attorneys are not commenting.
Chris Quinn (10:01.664)
It’s pathetic though that Ohio is a source of violence in other states because of how lax our laws are. We talk about this all the time. We don’t have even any common sense in the way we deal with gun sales, but it’s pretty ugly when police in other states are having to deal with violent crime that basically emanates from the violence in Ohio.
You’re listening to Today in Ohio. I laughed out loud when I read this story. Why are Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polenski constituents flooding his office with phone calls,
Courtney (10:36.408)
Yeah, so golf cart lovers in Cleveland have been lighting up Palensix lines and it’s about this proposal from Justin Bibb to allow businesses to operate golf carts on city streets. Now in Bibb’s view, and this is what the legislation that council advanced this week says, is that, you know, this is only for businesses to operate and they’re looking mainly for like little shuttle services downtown. like
sports events and other things you can kind put around downtown or take little tours. That’s the intention here. But as news of this idea has gotten out around town, Polenski says he’s been getting all sorts of calls from people in neighborhoods like Ohio City, Tremont, Detroit Shoreway, who want the ability to ride their own golf carts around their neighborhoods. Polenski said he’s just had lots of folks reach out interested in this. But
Polensk issued a very public message this week saying, don’t call me to get exceptions to the rules. That’s not what we’re setting up this new law to do. This is intended to be run by businesses. There aren’t going to be any personal golf carts allowed in Cleveland, he says, and there’s not going to be any rentals like you see like over on the Lake Erie Islands. These are for businesses only.
Chris Quinn (11:55.406)
I’m so thrown by the desire by people to ride these things. Part of my frame of reference, I grew up on a public golf course when I was a kid. And whenever I’d see the golfers in a golf cart, I would just look at them and think, how is this a sport? If you drive from spot to spot and then hit a ball, how do you get any exercise? I always thought this is just dumb. It’s the lazy person’s way of getting around. And yet,
When we were talking about this yesterday, Courtney, you were talking about how much fun you had riding around in one. So this whole trend is going right over my head. Maybe Cleveland should start passing some rules to let people tool around in their little electric golf carts. It seems like a bunch of people want that.
Courtney (12:40.856)
Yeah, I’m really, I’m tickled by the interest here. I feel the same. mean, it’s fun. It’s a novelty, right? You can cruise around, you can feel the wind in your hair, but you can kind of see where that’s not really going to fly well and play well with traffic. know, I mean, cars fly down city streets. I see big, big safety issues here if they were allowed to open up citywide.
Chris Quinn (12:49.741)
Ha ha!
Chris Quinn (13:05.998)
Although it would slow down traffic, right? If you’re going down the street and there’s a little golf cart in front of you, you’re going to have to slow down. And if people are using these to run up to the to the store instead of driving their car, maybe it’s better for the environment. I don’t know. I asked this morning, is there a town in the Midwest where these are permitted that we could go to and describe what life is like? I don’t think the Lake Erie Resort areas are the right.
the right field because the resort areas and the rules are all different when you’re on vacation. But are there places outside of the villages that retirement megalopolis in Florida where golf carts are a chief vehicle?
Courtney (13:45.594)
will say in the in the little town of Huron in Erie County, it is still kind of, to some degree, that lake vibe, but they’re legalized there and people cruise around on them and on that little city streets.
Laura (13:45.619)
And I think.
Laura (13:58.302)
I think that’s why people like them, because they feel like they’re on vacation, right? Like it gives you that little freedom feel, just like Courtney said.
Chris Quinn (13:58.574)
Okay.
Chris Quinn (14:06.294)
I would love to see them navigating Cleveland’s winter snow streets. That would be the fun part. I guess you’d have to put studded tires on them. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. It’s a noble effort by Ohio’s Democratic lawmakers, but they are so seriously outnumbered that you wonder whether this is worth their time. Lisa, what are they doing to try to protect Ohioans in need?
Courtney (14:09.904)
No way.
Lisa Garvin (14:10.545)
Exactly.
Laura (14:14.245)
a little plow on the front of it.
Lisa Garvin (14:32.884)
So Democratic representative Latina Humphrey of Columbus has introduced House Bill 502. This would use state funds to make up any shortfalls in federal funding for the SNAP, temporary assistance to needy families, and the Women, Infants, and Children nutrition programs. There’s been no hearing on the bill yet. House Speaker Matt Huffman says he’s not worried yet about the shutdowns effects on Ohio, but he says at some point it might be a problem.
So if there is a federal funding loss, which is looking more and more certain, the departments of health and jobs and family services here in Ohio would calculate the amount needed to cover the shortfall. And then they would take that money from the $3.9 billion rainy day fund. So Ohio for fiscal year 2025, which ends next July, they’re gonna get $726 million in TANF block grant funds. That’s about 60 million a month.
and then they’re gonna get $263 million a month for SNAP. So the SNAP benefits are only funded through the end of this month. There’s been no guidance from the U.S. Agriculture Department for November SNAP benefits, and the Trump administration is warning that there won’t be enough money for full benefits for SNAP next November.
Chris Quinn (15:50.156)
Yeah, but my feeling is that unless the Democrats are trying to figure out a way to give more money to millionaires in Ohio, their Republican counterparts won’t help. This is money to help people in need. And what we know about the supermajority and the state house is their thinking is all about giving more money to the wealthy.
Lisa Garvin (16:10.633)
I think it’s stunning that Speaker Huffman is basically shrugging his shoulders. He’s thinking, it might be a problem down the line, but you you kind of attack it before it becomes a big problem.
Chris Quinn (16:21.672)
Yeah, but their focus again, they keep cutting income taxes so they can give wealthy people more money. They’re so out of sync with what Ohio’s needs are. I just don’t think they care. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. Is Rolling Stone magazine backing down from the story it published about the machinations of the family of Cleveland native Eric Carmen, late pop superstar, Laura?
Laura (16:45.891)
No, it’s saying we were well-sourced and balanced in this January article about Carmen and his family. It’s a defamation lawsuit filed by the widow of the former raspberry frontman. And the art magazine is arguing that any statements about Amy Carmen were either substantially true, protected expressions of opinion or not defamatory at all. They say it’s nuanced, it doesn’t defame her, and the story included her own account and denials.
No, not backing down at all.
Chris Quinn (17:17.358)
Yeah, I didn’t think they would. You got to think that a magazine like Rolling Stone is going to be very, very careful before publishing something like that, especially given the litigiousness of his former widow. So we’ll have to see how this one plays out. It’ll be interesting when they start filing discovery and things in this suit to see what was really going on with that family.
Laura (17:43.324)
Right. It’s obviously not getting along very well. Their complaint cites 15 separate passages from the article that Amy Carmen says is defamatory, that says she was portrayed in a false late and statements from Carmen’s kids, former wife and brother. Her attorneys are arguing they are misleading or damaging. But you also have actual malice in this case because of how famous they are, right? They’d have to have, they have to try to make it defamatory.
Chris Quinn (18:12.118)
Right, right. It’s going to be a tough case to prove. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. What kind of cretin does it take to terrorize an Amish family with stun guns, kidnapping and death threats? Courtney, what horrendous crime took place in Jogga County last week?
Courtney (18:28.088)
Yeah, we learned yesterday some horrific details from this attack in Middlefield Township. And we’ve got a Canton man who was recently released from prison, accused in this attack, as well as two other people that have yet to be arrested and charged. But back to the incident itself, this trio rolled up to this home in Middlefield Township. And, you know, they’re accused of trying to abduct an eight-year-old Amish boy.
They’re accused of violently attacking his father during this home invasion. And this all started apparently when this group of men arrived and kind of feigned interest in wanting to patronize a cabinetry business that was run on this property. Our reporter, Molly Walsh, she actually talked to the mother of the family yesterday morning and Mary Ann Byler recounted this chilling attack. She described how when these folks posed as customers and came onto their property,
Her eight-year-old son Nathan was outside playing. He ran inside to get his dad. And one of the men followed the boy, stunned him with a stun gun, grabbed him. And then an attack proceeded to unfold where they beat up the boy’s father. And at one point threatened murder and threatened to kidnap this boy. But luckily he was able to escape and now law enforcement’s investigating.
Chris Quinn (19:50.902)
It’s bizarre because they’re from Canton. So they had a drive a long way and they decided to target an Amish furniture business believing what? That there’d be huge stacks of cash laying around. It just seems like it’s the ultimate in cruelty and stupidity. And the law enforcement people said as much. We can’t have, I think he called them slugs coming in from outside terrorizing.
our peaceful community. This one was one where you read the details, you just thought, what’s going on? Why would somebody pick this family to be the ones you go after?
Courtney (20:28.11)
Yeah, when we heard those harsh words from Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand yesterday, you know, he called this particularly disturbing, which I think anyone would agree with, right? But maybe this points to that question of why, Chris, that you raised. Hildenbrand, you know, addressed rumors during that press conference yesterday that Amish residents don’t report crimes. He said that rumor is false. He said his office has a close relationship with the local community. So I wonder if
If that could have been part of the motivation here, we’re gonna have to see as more information comes out.
Chris Quinn (21:01.28)
Well, I imagine the punishment will be severe for these guys this that they’ll be doing some serious prison time for doing what they did. You know, listening to Today in Ohio. All right, Lisa, now that Justin Bibb and the Browns have settled their differences, what’s the timetable for building a covered stadium in Brook Park? And are all the financial questions now answered?
Lisa Garvin (21:24.373)
most of the financial questions are answered. So Rich Exner wrote a great article about, and it’s a checklist of all the questions that people had about this new stadium. So the cost overall, $2.4 billion, $1 billion for the surrounding private development, and then road improvements are not included in this cost. Who’s paying? Most of the tax burden falls on stadium visitors via parking and admissions taxes.
And then there’s also city income taxes that are generated at the site. This is estimated to be about $300 million. The details of how they apportion that with the city of Brook Park is still to be determined. Of course, we know they got $600 million from the state’s unclaimed money fund. The Haslums will pay $1.5 billion of the $2.4 billion cost, and they will pay for cost overruns.
As we know, the county’s participation is still unknown. Chris and Renee is still holding the line there. Cleveland gets $100 million over time from the Haslams, including an estimated $30 million to raise the old stadium, prepare the site for future development. There’s a $25 million first payment due on the December 1st, and then they’ll get $5 million a year from the Haslams from 2029 to 2033. That’s $30 million total.
and then $2 million a year from 2029 to 2039 for mutually agreed community benefit projects. Now, one of the unanswered questions is maintenance cost. That funding source is still to be determined. The Browns are talking about proposing a voter ballot issue to triple the syntax on beer, alcohol, and tobacco, but there’s no movement on that yet. If that happens, the Browns would get one third of that money.
Chris Quinn (23:12.278)
The question I have is given the Haslam’s willingness to provide substantial funds now to the city to settle, whether similar discussions could be had with Chris Ronne. The Haslam’s clearly want to be able to borrow under the Cuyahoga County bonding rate because it’s so much better than they can get commercially. And you just wonder if they sat down and had a real heart to heart.
If there would be a path where it would somehow be in the county’s interest to help out the county is having serious money troubles. The Haslam’s are looking for solutions here, but you just get the feeling conversations aren’t being had that the Chris Ronan finance team is not really having the brass tax conversation with the Browns finance team. So we don’t know what the possibilities are. We’re trying to figure out what the paths could be clearly.
Cuyahoga County has to borrow a lot of money to build a jail and they can’t afford to have a higher interest rate by messing up with bonding with the Browns. But I’m not a municipal finance expert. I don’t know what all the models are, but you just feel like the same kind of conversations that happened in Cleveland are not happening with the county. And I keep waiting for the Cuyahoga County Council to at least have a hearing or something to say, okay, Dean Jimmy Haslam.
What are you asking for? What are you offering? So that conversation can be held.
Lisa Garvin (24:44.641)
Well, maybe they’re waiting for the Haslums to come to them. I mean, I really don’t know. Chris Ronane has been pretty solid in his opposition to giving any money. And I have to say that I’m with him on that. But I do have a question because Rich Exchoners’ article also talked about the site itself and the building and the details on the building. So it’s going to have these slanted glass roofs, but it’s not retractable. Am I correct in that? It’s not a retractable roof?
Chris Quinn (25:10.382)
Yeah, I don’t believe it is a retractable roof.
Lisa Garvin (25:11.975)
Okay. So I wonder because they say that some of the events they might attract are a Super Bowl, but I don’t know that you can have a Super Bowl in a, because they shoot from the blimp a lot of the time. So I don’t know if that roof would, you know, keep them from getting a Super Bowl, but they do say that other events, they said that it could hold up to 75,000 people if they have like a concert with people sitting on the field, but the capacity for the stadium will be 67,500 fans.
Chris Quinn (25:38.424)
You wonder about the water table out there, because they’ve got to dig so far down. How exotic will the system be that pumps the water that keeps seeping in out? You would think that that would have to be running all the time if you go deep enough. And they’re going pretty deep because of the airport.
Lisa Garvin (25:40.811)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Garvin (25:52.097)
And also too, this was an old Ford plant. Did they do an environmental review? Is there any brownfield mitigation there? Do we know that?
Chris Quinn (26:03.294)
No, we don’t know the answer to that. And I’ve been waiting to hear what that is. And maybe that’s why they were moving dirt around a few weeks ago. Who knows? But there are still some questions to be answered. You’re listening to Today in Ohio. It’s a short episode for Wednesday. Thanks, Laura. Thanks, Courtney. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you for being here. We’ll return Thursday to talk about the news.