Lots of Innuendo but Little Substance in ‘Los Angeles’ Magazine Article

ALL BARK, NO BITE: Some stories are so bad they’re good. Some stories are too good to be true. The 4,000-word rip-the-lid-off exposé written by screenwriter-turned-reporter Mitchell Kriegman in the most recent Los Angeles magazine about the corruptions wrought by cannabis in Santa Barbara, it turns out, are both. The article is, undeniably, a great read. Unfortunately, it’s also false at its very core.

The article — “In Sleepy Santa Barbara, a City Hall Insider Is Raising Eyebrows” — is an indefensibly one-sided warts-and-all romp through the landscape of Santa Barbara city politics in which dirt gets deliciously dished on Mayor Cathy Murillo, City Administrator Paul Casey, City Attorney Ariel Calonne, and former police chief Lori Luhnow. 

But the most dirt is dumped on Luhnow’s right-hand man, Anthony Wagner, whom Kriegman depicts as a bully, a buffoon, and a crook — a public servant who rigged the deck on behalf of his former business partner in securing one of the city’s three lucrative cannabis dispensary permits. The partner then flipped it, making untold millions in profit.