Judge to Rule on Prosecutors’ Effort to Close Medical Cannabis Center

A judge will decide at a hearing Monday whether to keep Ventura County’s only medical cannabis center closed until a civil lawsuit is resolved.

Prosecutors are asking Superior Court Judge William L. Peck to grant a preliminary injunction that would keep the Ventura County Medical Cannabis Center shuttered until the judge resolves whether the Thousand Oaks operation is illegal.

The center has been closed for a month to allow attorneys for cannabis center owner Andrea Nagy to file court documents in her defense. James M. Silva, one of Nagy’s attorneys, says the pot dispensary is a patients’ cooperative rather than a retail marijuana outlet, as prosecutors contend.

“The basic gist is that all members who belong to what was the Ventura County Medical Cannabis Center jointly own the cannabis that is cultivated on behalf of each of them individually and all of them as a whole,” Silva said.

Prosecutors say there is no evidence to prove that the center is anything other than a sales operation.

A Thousand Oaks resident, Nagy opened the cannabis center about a year after California voters approved the medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 215.

After an appellate court ruled that a San Francisco cannabis club broke laws against selling marijuana, local prosecutors filed a civil lawsuit seeking to permanently close the cannabis center. In court papers, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mitch Disney argued that the center threatens public health and safety and engages in “anti-competitive, unfair, fraudulent and unlawful business practices.”

The state Supreme Court recently declined to hear the case, letting the appellate decision stand.

“That just gave an important stamp of approval to the appellate decision,” Disney said.