Cannabis laws give landlords a unique amount of control and bargaining power over tenants. This usually translates to above-market rent and one-sided lease agreements. Fighting with landlords is no fun, especially for cannabis tenants who cannot simply relocate to a new property and must deal with their lessor for the life of a license. In
Succeeding in the cannabis industry is not easy, especially in California. Complex regulation, high taxes, expensive real estate, and competition with the black market are just a handful of factors that challenge cannabis businesses. The majority of players lack sufficient reserves and agility to stay in the game. Due to the substantial upfront costs required
Recently, Governor Newsom signed 18 bills aimed to combat the housing crisis in California, including the Tenant Protection Act of 2019. When I spoke at the California Association of Realtor’s Legal Affairs conference a couple of weeks ago, I was asked whether cannabis activity could be considered grounds for “just cause” eviction under the new Tenant
I cringe every time a form lease comes across my desk for a California cannabis tenant. While C.A.R. and A.I.R. lease forms certainly have their advantages (brokers and veteran landlords are comfortable with them, and they can be cheap and efficient if the transaction is simple), because of the complexity involved in leasing to cannabis
We’ve previously written about some of the pitfalls for landlords to avoid when leasing to commercial cannabis tenants in California. We’ve also recently discussed some relevant issues for landlords created by the state’s near-final regulations. And we’ve also looked at some of the biggest uncertainties remaining after the state issued those regulations. Now that we
We’ve previously written about some of the pitfalls for landlords to avoid when leasing to commercial cannabis tenants in California. We’ve also written about how the state’s recently proposed modifications to its final cannabis regulations could affect licensees and the industry writ large (see here and here). The comment period for those rule changes is
Prior to the enactment of AB 2164, California law required cities and counties to grant a person responsible for a continuing municipal code violation a reasonable time to remedy the violation before the city or county could impose fines or penalties when that violation pertained to building, plumbing, electrical, or other similar structural and zoning issues
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) is a federal Nixon-era law originally intended to combat drug cartels and organized crime. Among other features, it allows average citizens claiming a loss in property value to bring suit for triple damages plus attorney’s fees against any “person” or “enterprise” that has a part in any
We’ve written previously about some common issues landlords run into when leasing to cannabis businesses (see links at the bottom of this article). Now that we’ve seen almost a year’s worth of emergency regulations, and the state has released its proposed final regulations, we’ve also seen a variety of cannabis leasing issues crop up. Here
Almost two years after the passage of Proposition 64, the 2016 California voter initiative to legalize and regulate medicinal and adult-use cannabis, California has begun to finalize its regulations that will govern the largest cannabis market in the country, though that effort has not been without some hiccups and bumps in the road. But, things
