City Asks Appeals Court to Reconsider Bid to Block Marijuana Dispensary Closure

The city of Oakland has taken another step in its four-year battle to block a federal closure of the nation’s largest medical marijuana dispensary. On Monday, lawyers for the city asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to designate a rarely convened 11-judge panel to review its challenge to the planned federal forfeiture of the premises of the Harborside Health Center.

The city’s appeal asks for review by a larger panel of an August decision in which three 9th Circuit judges said Oakland didn’t have the right to try to challenge the civil forfeiture action. The three-judge panel said that only parties with a property interest, such as a landlord, could challenge such lawsuits. Harborside, founded in 2006, says it serves 200,000 registered patients and is the largest medical marijuana dispensary in the U.S.

Executive director Steve DeAngelo said today the group is grateful for Oakland’s support.

“The Department of Justice should not be trying to close down Harborside; they should study us as a model of safe and responsible cannabis distribution,” DeAngelo said in a statement. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco was not immediately available for comment. The dispute stems from a forfeiture lawsuit filed against Harborside’s landlord in July 2012 by lawyers from the office of now-retired U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag.

The forfeiture effort was part of an initiative by all four regional U.S. attorneys in California to crack down on dispensaries perceived to be large-scale commercial enterprises. Although California’s voter-approved Compassionate Use Act protects patients who use medical marijuana with a doctor’s approval, federal laws criminalizing the drug make no exception for state laws. Three months after federal attorneys filed the forfeiture case, Oakland filed a separate lawsuit seeking to challenge it. The forfeiture action has been put on hold until Oakland’s lawsuit is resolved.

In Monday’s appeal for a rehearing, the city contends the key issue is whether it has a right to seek a legal remedy for its own alleged injuries, which it says are different from the harm that would be sustained by Harborside and its landlord. The city says its injuries from forfeiture would include a loss of tax revenue, increased crime stemming from black-market cannabis sales, and loss of its ability to regulate the safe provision of medical marijuana to patients who need it.

“Whether a major municipality can be denied access to the courts to seek redress for unique and significant injuries is a question of exceptional importance that this court should consider and resolve,” Oakland’s attorneys wrote.

The appeals court has no deadline for acting on the petition for rehearing. It grants only about 20 rehearings before an 11-judge panel each year, out of 1,000 such petitions filed. If the appeals court declines to rehear the case, Oakland could take one last step of appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Bay City News