By Ronnie Cohen
SAN FRANCISCO |
Mon Jan 7, 2013 11:11pm EST
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A sovereign court decider on Monday ruled that a medical-marijuana hospital that bills itself as a world’s largest can continue to operate, during slightest for now, in Oakland and San Jose notwithstanding a bid by sovereign prosecutors to close it down.
The supervision outlines a latest pierce in a tug-of-war between internal and sovereign authorities over medical pot dispensaries and over Harborside Health Center, that was featured on a Discovery Channel existence TV uncover “Weed Wars.”
Harborside’s landlords are seeking to exude a store underneath vigour from sovereign prosecutors as partial of a U.S. government’s crackdown on what it deems to be bootleg pot shops in California and a West.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James ruled that a government, not a landlords, contingency pierce to exude Harborside for a purported defilement of a sovereign Controlled Substances Act.
The landlords “are attempting to use a procedural order in a polite damage move to move what amounts to an coercion movement … opposite Harborside,” a 17-page supervision said. “This is a magnitude that a Government – a entity charged with enforcing a supervision – has inaugurated not to pursue.”
The city of Oakland in Oct sued a sovereign supervision in an bid to concede Harborside to continue offered pot to a 100,000 patients. Oakland officials warned that a shutdown would lead to a “health crisis.”
The city expects to collect $1.4 million in medical-pot sales taxes this year.
“This is a poignant feat for a City of Oakland and a 400,000 citizens, for thousands of cannabis patients, and for a Harborside dispensary,” Cedric Chao, a counsel representing a city pro bono.
“With today’s ruling, we can rise Oakland’s box in a judicious approach and tee adult a sovereign government’s actions for hearing by a sovereign judiciary,” he said.
Eighteen states, including California, and a District of Columbia concede medical marijuana.
But U.S. prosecutors disagree that sovereign law takes dominance over state law and sought to close down Harborside by perplexing to seize a landlords’ properties.
The decider will continue to hear both a landlords’ eviction box opposite Harborside and Oakland’s lawsuit restraint a eviction.
(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Eric Walsh)