Missouri court orders delay in one medical marijuana dispensary license decision

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Correction:An earlier version of this story misstated the reach of the current court decision. 

A Missouri court late Friday ordered the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to delay approving or rejecting one applicant for a license to run a medical marijuana retail dispensary.

The licenses will allow businesses to sell cannabis to authorized Missouri patients from highly secured retail locations. At least 192 were expected to be issued Friday, Jan. 24, according to previous health department statements.

But Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green ordered the delay of a decision regarding one applicant for a license in Independence until at least the following Monday, Jan. 27.

It's unclear how that might affect the overall dispensary licensing process. Asked for comment on the suit Saturday morning, a DHSS spokeswoman said via text message, "the case is about the Independence ordinance and not DHSS." She said she did not believe licensing overall would be delayed but referred further questions to the Missouri Attorney General's Office.

The News-Leader reached out to a spokesman for the attorney general and has not yet received a response.

Independence approved marijuana zoning regulations last year that were more stringent than the buffer zones from churches, day cares and schools written into Missouri's medical marijuana constitutional amendment, the USA TODAY Network reported earlier this week. 

Some in the pro-cannabis community regard Independence's zoning rules as "violating the Missouri constitution," in the words of Emily Branch, a former owner of a cannabis clinic for patients seeking state-approved medical marijuana cards.

The plaintiff in the suit is HCKC LLC, according to public court records, doing business as Healing Center of Kansas City.

The News-Leader reached out to the person listed as owner on Healing Center's state registration paperwork and other officials tied to Healing Center.

"We would not like to comment at this time," one of the officials, Jay Richards, responded via email. "Perhaps after the award of dispensary licenses are provided."

Companies tied to Healing Center applied for at least 10 dispensary licenses, according to medical marijuana facility applicant data provided to the News-Leader by the Missouri health department. 

Healing Center's would-be dispensaries span much of the state, including the St. Louis and Kansas City regions, Rolla and Columbia.

But a location planned for 17620 E. 39th St. in Independence — the Kansas City-area hometown of President Harry Truman — appears to lie at the center of the lawsuit.

The city of Independence is named as a defendant in the suit, along with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and its director, Randall Williams.

The three defendants are using the same three lawyers in the suit. 

The Healing Center suit is not the only one faced by the Missouri health department as it licenses medical cannabis facilities for Missouri's new state program.

The Callicoat family, entrepreneurs who want to revive the old Sarcoxie Nurseries tree farm as a 70-acre cannabis cultivation and infused-product manufacturing facility, filed suit last month after their commercial cultivation license application was denied by DHSS.

"We thought our application had to be one of the strongest in the state," Paul Callicoat, a medical doctor, told the News-Leader earlier this week. "We built our whole business on the 10 things that the amendment says they want in order to qualify for a license, and we built our program around that. We don't think there were 60 people building a program stronger than ours."

Another would-be marijuana entrepreneur, Brian Atchley, who wants to be part of the market with his company Medigro LLC, told the News-Leader in early January that he's tied to two lawsuits.

Atchley, like many other applicants, questioned DHSS licensing procedures.

“There'll be some uglies when some of these documents hit the courts,” Atchley told the News-Leader for a Jan. 10 report, shortly after infused-product manufacturers were announced.

RELATED:Everything you need to know about medical marijuana in Missouri

Gregory Holman is the investigative reporter for the News-Leader. He has been following cannabis news since before Missouri voters adopted Amendment 2 in November 2018. Email news tips to gholman@gannett.com and consider supporting vital local journalism by subscribing. Learn more by visiting News-Leader.com/subscribe.