By Jameson Cook
Macomb Daily Staff Writer

Township is trying to shut down Gratiot Avenue facility

The state Attorney General on Monday was allowed to intervene in Chesterfield Township’s legal action to shut down a so-called dispensary for medical marijuana.

Judge John Foster of Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens approved Attorney General Bill Schuette joining the township in trying to close the Big Daddy’s medical marijuana facility on Gratiot Avenue. The township says it’s a public nuisance, and violates ordinances and regulations.

“Across Michigan, our communities are struggling with an invasion of pot shops near their schools, homes and churches,” Schuette said in a prepared statement. “Local governments have the right to protect their communities from illegal marijuana dispensaries.”

Schuette has been cracking down on medical marijuana facilities that profit from sales, particularly since a Court of Appeals ruling earlier this year in People vs. McQueen, a case from Mount Pleasant in Isabella County, that outlawed patient-to-patient sales. Brandon McQueen has appealed to the state Supreme Court, according to a published report.

The state Medical Marijuana Act was passed by voters in 2008 and allows caregivers to receive “compensation for costs associated with assisting a registered qualifying patient in the medical use of marijuana.” Patients can possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and 12 plants. Caregivers can supply up to five patients.

The township in July sued Big Daddy’s Management Group and three individuals for the medical marijuana facility between 23 Mile and 24 Mile roads. Big Daddy’s operates four medical marijuana facilities in southeast Michigan that have been targeted by the government.

The township says the facility cannot exist in its M-2 (general manufacturing) zoned area and fails to meet any of 10 special land uses. It also violates an ordinance that specifically bans a “medical marijuana dispensary, compassion center or other similar operation for the consumption or distribution of medical marijuana. In addition, the defendants failed to obtain a “certificate of zoning compliance” and never submitted a “site plan for change of use of the property,” the township says.

Big Daddy’s says the facility complies with state law and township ordinances. It eliminated its monetary transactions between and among patients and caregivers since the COA ruling. The facility continues to sell equipment for growing marijuana indoors and advice.

The township will be able to amend its complaint to include Schuette’s claims.

In the press release, Schuette interprets the McQueen case as saying the MMA authorizes medical marijuana in “very limited circumstances” and does not allow dispensaries.

Earlier this year, Schuette joined Isabella County Prosecutor Larry Burdick and Midland County Prosecutor Michael Carpenters in seeking to close medical marijuana facilities.

In the Chesterfield Township case, Foster also approved the township’s request to “compel the depositions” of Big Daddy’s owners Rick and Sue Ferris, and Rick Thompson, who is editor of Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine and a member of the Michigan Association of Compassion Centers. Also named as a defendant was the landlord, Pasquale Acciavatti.

Credit: http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2011/10/24/news/doc4ea59c56d96ec300064676.txt?viewmode=fullstory

In what could prove to be a landmark court ruling in the USA this week, a Massachusetts man who bought property in a faulty foreclosure sale was told that he didn’t have the right to bring a legal case over the property because he never actually became its owner, the state’s high court has ruled.

The Supreme Judicial Court, which in January found that banks cannot foreclose on a house if they don’t own the mortgage, went one step further this week in a closely watched case and ruled that a house that has been sold after foreclosure doesn’t allow the legal transfer of the property.

This means that the buyer cannot bring a court action against a previous owner, the court has decided.

In the case in question, Francis J. Bevilacqua bought a residential property in Haverhill, Massachusetts, but never really owned it because U.S. Bancorp foreclosed before it got the mortgage.

Yesterday’s ruling could have major implications for the whole US foreclosure crisis in which many banks have been accused of confusing and destabilising the home title process through sloppy and inaccurate mortgage transfers.

“By alleging that U.S. Bank was not the assignee of the mortgage at the time of the purported foreclosure, Bevilacqua is necessarily asserting that the power of sale was not complied with, that the purported sale was invalid, and that his grantor’s title was defective,” the court wrote.

“In light of its defective title, the intention of U.S. Bank to transfer the property to Bevilacqua is irrelevant and he cannot have become the owner of the property pursuant to the quitclaim deed.”

Bevilacqua’s lawyer Jeffrey B. Loeb, told OPP that while he’s “disappointed” in the ruling, it does pave the way to a solution for third-party buyers: re-foreclosure.

“It reaffirms the concept that a defective foreclosure deed operates as an assignment of the mortgage – and if you can trace the ownership of the mortgage – that person would have the right to re-foreclose,” said Loeb of Rich May PC in Boston.

For more information, the case is Bevilacqua v. Rodriguez, 10880, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts (Boston).
Credit: http://www.opp.org.uk/news-article.php?id=5785