Marijuana dispensary seeks internal county records
As it considers suing Clark County over its delayed opening, a medical marijuana dispensary is seeking internal emails that could shed light on the county’s treatment of it and other businesses.
The public records request filed Tuesday by Euphoria Wellness asks for emails, phone records and other documents in 13 categories.
Maggie McLetchie, Euphoria’s attorney, has called the county’s treatment of the business unfair and arbitrary. She said county officials have barred the dispensary from buying plants from home growers, even though that’s allowed by state law.
The county also inserted a clause in Euphoria’s temporary business license limiting displays of pipes and other devices. McLetchie said that was based not on a law or regulation, but on a county commissioner’s personal dislike of a proposed display.
Both topics are covered in the records request. By law, the county has five days to respond.
“We’re an open book,” county spokesman Erik Pappa said Wednesday. “We’re going to provide all the public records she’s sought.”
He added that the records will show “this business has been treated fairly and in accordance with the law.”
County officials have declined to make Department of Business License officials available for interviews about their talks with Euphoria. Pappa said the clause about where the dispensary could obtain marijuana was included after the business agreed to it.
But McLetchie has said Euphoria agreed to it only after the county insisted on it as a condition of issuing the business license.
In her letter requesting documents, McLetchie wrote: “Euphoria has not decided whether to file suit and continues to hope to resolve any areas of dispute with Business Licensing and Clark County.” McLetchie also represents the Review-Journal in public records issues.
“Listen, no one likes litigation, but the law is on our side,” Pappa said.
Several of the records requests suggest Euphoria believes it has been treated differently than other marijuana businesses.
McLetchie’s letter asks for “all records that reflect that Business Licensing has imposed a prohibition on any other medical marijuana establishment that has applied for a business license in Clark County pertaining to procuring product from patients.”
Her letter also says the county delayed processing of Euphoria’s application for a business license and later delayed conducting an inspection.
McLetchie also seeks records about interactions between Department of Business License staff and Steve Sisolak, the County Commission chairman.
In an interview, Sisolak said he arranged and sat in on about six meetings that included Euphoria and other county officials. Any implication that he did something improper outside those meetings, he said, is untrue.
Sisolak said he’s eager to get dispensaries open and medical marijuana into patients’ hands. But he said it has to be done “the right way.”
Euphoria and the county have clashed over interpretation of a state law that says a home grower can possess only 2.5 ounces of “usable marijuana” at a time. The county says that means it would be illegal for a patient to sell more than 2.5 ounces to a dispensary.
But state Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, who sponsored the legislation to allow marijuana dispensaries, said limiting sales to such a small amount was never the Legislature’s intent.
Contact Eric Hartley at ehartley@reviewjournal.com or 702-550-9229. Find him on Twitter: @ethartley.