A woman who owns a company that claims to be California’s largest landlord of marijuana businesses sued the city of San Bernardino to overturn a cannabis regulation ordinance that could bar her from the industry.
Stephanie Smith, owner of a business called Bubba Likes Tortillas, claims in the lawsuit that the city’s new law could create monopolies and also prevent her from renting property to growers and other marijuana operations.
Under the law, anyone – a permit applicant, a cannabis company employee or even a property owner – could be barred from entering the city’s commercial cannabis industry if they had violated local or state laws related to marijuana or if they had failed to report income from it.
Smith is concerned the ordinance could apply to tenants – or even her company – because at least some of her tenants were in the process of being licensed in December when they were raided by law enforcement.
Those tenants received approval letters to operate a week after they were shut down, but the law appears to make them ineligible for licenses.
The suit also claims the law could create monopolies of certain types of marijuana operating licenses.
Under the ordinance, 17 commercial marijuana businesses are allowed in the city, but there are 19 types of licenses that could be issued.
A city spokeswoman did not immediately comment on the case.
– Associated Press