Stepping up an aggressive policy toward medical marijuana
dispensaries in California, U.S. attorneys are warning landlords
that they may seize properties of anyone leasing space to marijuana
stores.
Peter Hecht
Stepping up an aggressive policy toward medical marijuana dispensaries in California, U.S. attorneys are warning landlords that they may seize properties of anyone leasing space to marijuana stores.
Letters sent this week to targeted dispensaries in San Diego, San Francisco, Marin and elsewhere warn that California’s medical marijuana law is no protection against property seizure or prosecution under federal law.
The letters demand that landlords or operators “discontinue the sale and/or distribution of marijuana … within 45 days.”
The specter of new federal intervention against California dispensaries follows the disclosure this week that the Internal Revenue Service is seeking a $2.4 million tax penalty against California’s largest medical marijuana provider, the Harborside Health Center in Oakland.
The letters also come as top federal prosecutors from California’s four federal judicial districts are due to appear in Sacramento on Friday to announce a U.S. Justice Department policy towards medical marijuana sales and cultivation.
In recent weeks, federal authorities in Sacramento have seized accounts of two dispensaries in a probe of irregular banking practices.
They filed criminal charges against operators of another dispensary accused of conspiracy and illegal marijuana sales for alleged profiteering, despite California law mandating that dispensaries operate as non-profits.
Lauren Horwood, spokeswoman for Sacramento U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner, said Thursday that warning letters have also been sent out to dispensary landlords and people leasing land for marijuana cultivation in Wagner’s 34-county Eastern District.
In Oct. 4 letters obtained by The Sacramento Bee, Laura E. Duffy, the U.S. attorney in the state’s Southern District warned two San Diego dispensaries that “operations involving sales and distribution of marijuana are illegal and subject criminal prosecution.”
In threatening seizure of “real and personal property,” she warned San Diego’s Ocean Beach Wellness Centers and Oasis Herbal Center marijuana stores that federal law trumps state law and “it is not a defense…that the dispensary is providing marijuana.”
The federal actions could have significant consequences in California where medical marijuana transactions are estimated at $1.5 billion or more. The state of California receives an estimated $100 million in sales taxes on dispensaries. Several cities, including Sacramento, have sought to infuse depleted coffers by taxing medical marijuana at local dispensaries.
