The nation’s biggest pot club, Harborside Health Center, is waiting for Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James to decide if it can keep selling pot in its Oakland and San Jose locations — and the decision could come down at any moment.
Local U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag is trying to seize Harborside’s two locations unless it stops selling state-legal medical cannabis, so Harborside’s landlords have asked a state judge, and now a federal judge, to issue a preliminary injunction barring sales. Judge James seems well-versed in the case — and skeptical as to whether the club has to stop selling pot immediately, considering it had done so openly for six years without drawing a raid and criminal prosecutions.
