A local baker is suing the Mississippi Department of Revenue for revoking her medical cannabis dispensary license.
Nicole Huff, owner of Southern Flour Bakery, filed an appeal in November to Lowndes County Circuit Court challenging MDOR’s decision on the basis she was not given enough time to obtain her city privilege license.
Huff received her license from MDOR on July 26 to operate a medical cannabis dispensary next to her bakery at 1920 Hwy. 45 N. She had applied for a state license earlier that month, submitting a signed attestation promising to obtain a privilege license from the city within seven days of July 21 — when the city’s ordinance regulating cannabis businesses went into effect.
While Huff’s complaint includes copies of emails she exchanged with Building Official Kenny Wiegel, she did not apply for the privilege license by that deadline, and MDOR revoked her state license on Aug. 9.
“Wildflower has failed to uphold its obligations to maintain a medical cannabis dispensary license,” the revocation notice reads.
Before revoking her license, MDOR contacted Wiegel on Aug. 1 for information on privilege license applicants. At that time, Huff had not applied, but three other prospective dispensary owners had.
With the revocation, MDOR also notes Huff is ineligible to receive a state dispensary license for medical cannabis in the future.
Huff first appealed the decision to the MDOR Board of Review, which upheld the revocation on Sept. 28.
When Huff applied for her state license, she had to note what local privilege licenses she had not yet obtained and when she expected to receive them, along with information regarding her business plan, an outline of what the store space would look like as well as a security plan, among other things. She paid MDOR a non-refundable $40,000 — $25,000 for a license fee and a $15,000 application fee.
In Huff’s court filing, her attorney Conner Reeves, of Jackson-based McLaughlin PC, argues MDOR’s local permit regulation did not specify any time constraints for an applicant to submit. Further, the attestation Huff submitted with her application stating she would seek a local license within seven days of July 21 was burdensome, unfair and conflicts with the plain language of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act.
Reeves also argues Huff was consistently working with Wiegel to obtain information about applying for her local license.
Huff had initially applied to go before the city Planning Commission on June 9 to receive a recommendation and, after that, approval from the city council to obtain the local privilege license. She backed out after the city approved a new ordinance to begin accepting further applications on July 21 or after a dispensary had already received a license from MDOR.
In her attestation, Huff noted she would “seek” local licensing within seven days of the city ordinance going into effect, which Reeves claims she did by corresponding with Wiegel on how to go about the process, even though she did not formally apply for a privilege license at that time.
In response, the MDOR attorney Morton W. Smith filed a request on Dec. 8 to dismiss the appeal.
MDOR denies the words “obtain” or “apply for” create an even greater burden than the attestation actually contained, and denies that “seeking” means “simply .. some action to try and acquire or gain a local privilege license.”
Smith also argues emails between Huff and Wiegel don’t constitute evidence she was clearly seeking the privilege license. He writes they also constitute “hearsay” and may be incomplete.
He further claims that a written attestation voluntarily provides a time frame for an applicant to obtain or apply for a local privilege license and to provide it to MDOR, and the licensee is subsequently held to it.
A court date for the appeal has not yet been set, Circuit Clerk Teresa Barksdale said.
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