Cannabis dispensary goes to court over SF’s denial of permit

The owners of a cannabis dispensary that was denied permission to open in San Francisco’s Sunset District took the city to court Thursday, three months after the Board of Supervisors voted down the store’s permit application.

In a filing Thursday in San Francisco Superior Court, lawyers for PNB Noriega LLC — better known as the Apothecarium — claimed the board had overturned “legally correct land use decisions to favor politically connected groups,” when it went against the City Planning Commission’s vote to approve the dispensary at 2505 Noriega Street. The proposed dispensary is owned by former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan and her husband, Floyd Huen.

Ultimately, they seek to force the supervisors to reverse their decision and allow the Apothecarium to open.

The supervisors squelched the club’s permit after a tumultuous hearing on Oct. 3, at which dozens of older Chinese residents joined Sacramento’s right-wing Pacific Justice Institute to appeal the Planning Commission’s decision and block the dispensary from opening. Opponents of the dispensary compared marijuana use to the opioid epidemic and said the Apothecarium would lure children from the quiet west side neighborhood into a life of addiction.

Although several supervisors dismissed those claims and then chastened the Pacific Justice Institute for meddling in San Francisco politics, in the end, they sided with the group. Supervisors Malia Cohen and Jeff Sheehy were the only dissenting votes.

A month later, the supervisors voted the other way when faced with a separate appeal for a similar dispensary in the same district. It drew opposition from the same group of anti-cannabis protesters, who repeated the arguments they had used to kill the Apothecarium proposal. They said the pot club would bring in transients and send pungent smells wafting into nearby businesses, including an urgent care facility expected to open next door.

The supervisors rejected those arguments and called Barbary Coast Collective a shining example of how a dispensary could blend in with a community — going against the findings they’d made to quash the Apothecarium, the court filing said.

Barbary Coast was approved by a 10-1 vote and became the first pot club given permission to open in the Sunset, where it has no competition. Supervisor Katy Tang, who represents the Sunset, was the lone “no” vote.

The club is co-owned by David Ho, a rising Chinatown power broker allied with several supervisors.

Ho worked as a consultant for an independent expenditure committee that backed Supervisor Ahsha Safai’s race in 2016. He also ran an independent expenditure campaign, on behalf of the hotel workers union, to support Jane Kim’s unsuccessful 2016 bid for state Senate.

The Apothecarium’s filing cited news reports stating that roughly half of at least $153,000 donated to supervisors by owners, employees, lobbyists and firms connected to the cannabis industry came from Barbary Coast. It did not specify a time frame or provide any evidence of those donations.

An independent review by The Chronicle showed that the 11 supervisors took more than $27,000 from owners and employees of Barbary Coast between January 2012 and this year, with the biggest share going to Supervisor Mark Farrell — who took $10,000 for his Democratic County Central Committee campaign chest — and acting Mayor London Breed, who received $8,000.

By contrast, the supervisors drew $3,750 from the Apothecarium’s executive director Ryan Hudson, lobbyist Michael Colbruno and land use attorney Brett Gladstone during the same time period.

“This is a classic example of the Board of Supervisors talking out of both sides of its mouth,” said Eliot Dobris, a spokesman for the Apothecarium. “Why are the decisions different? The answer is follow the money.”

Ho disagreed, saying Thursday that the Apothecarium owners were “bitter” because they had failed to endear themselves to Sunset residents.

He laughed over his own appearance in the court papers.

“They’re helping me with publicity,” he said.