Puerto Rico’s appeal court upholds a dispensary closure over its use permit

A Puerto Rico appeal court upheld Bayamón’s order stopping The Family Dispensary from selling medical cannabis under a permit for essential household goods. The November 2020 decision left the municipality’s enforcement authority intact after patients had joined the business in challenging the closure.

Patients had begun buying cannabis in December 2016

The Family Dispensary opened on 30 December 2016 and sold medical-cannabis products to patients authorised by the health department. It formed part of the early market that followed the 2015 medical initiative.

The business’s local use permit, however, described dispensing or selling essential household goods. It did not specify a cannabis dispensary.

On 10 March 2017, state and municipal police arrived to enforce a closure order. The municipality cited the mismatch between the authorised use and the cannabis sales taking place there.

Patients joined the challenge over access to treatment

The dispensary sought a court order against the closure and claimed violations of due process and property rights. Several patients joined because they had lost access to their medicine.

A preliminary court order allowed the business to continue operating while it completed the appropriate permit process. It obtained a cannabis-dispensary use permit from the central permits office in April 2017.

The dispute nevertheless continued over whether the municipality had been entitled to stop the earlier operation and whether damages were due.

The appeal court upheld the municipality’s authority

The judges distinguished an order stopping an unauthorised activity from revoking the property’s existing permit. The permit for essential goods remained; the municipality had ordered the business to stop a different use.

The court rejected the argument that Bayamón’s lack of authority to issue the cannabis permit also prevented it from enforcing the applicable use restrictions. It found that the dispensary had known its original permit did not authorise cannabis sales.

The appeal court therefore upheld that part of the lower court’s judgment and retained fifteen hundred dollars in legal costs and fees.

The patients’ withdrawn claims changed one part of the result

The municipality had also brought a counterclaim seeking to make the dispensary responsible for the patient claims. Those patients later withdrew their individual claims.

That removed the basis for the counterclaim, so the appeal court rejected it while otherwise affirming the judgment.

The case followed the 2017 medical-cannabis law, which protected patients acting within the programme. For an operating dispensary in Puerto Rico, patient access also depended on maintaining the permissions needed for the premises where cannabis was sold.^[1][2]