Utah appeals court rejects challenge to medical cannabis grow licenses

SALT LAKE CITY – A state appeals court is not going to revoke a number of marijuana growing licenses issued by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food – despite an examination that recommended revision.

In a ruling released late Friday, the Utah appeals court declined to upset a decision not to grant JLPR LLC a grow license. The company has been fighting for one since 2019.

JLPR was Among 81 companies that applied for a cultivation license from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food and were about to obtain onesaid the court. JLPR protested the decision, claiming the application process had been speeded up, the agency changed its criteria at the last minute to allow companies outside of Utah to compete, and UDAF had not properly followed its own evaluation criteria.

It was denied by a hearing officer who said the company had provided no evidence of bias.

JLPR pressed forward and appealed to the state’s Board of Procurement Policy “, alleging that it had found” significant conflicts of interest and political ties “which it believed” drove many, if not all, of the selection results ” that “the selection process” was based on who you are and who you know, rather than whether you are truly capable and qualified to run a cannabis business, “wrote Judge Ryan Harris in the Utah Court of Appeal decision.

“However, JLPR did not provide any specific information to support these claims and merely stated that it would prepare if necessary to disclose all information [it had] discovered so far. ‘And again, JLPR indicated that the appeal requested was a meeting with the appropriate decision-makers, including, but not limited to. . . the lieutenant governor, governor, bipartisan senators, representatives, lawmakers, oversight committees and the attorney general to discuss [its] Qualifications for a cannabis license. “

JLPR went to the Utah Court of Appeals after being denied again. This time they included A blistering audit done by John Dougall, the state auditor for the state of Utah, identified a number of issues with the state’s licensing process for medicinal cannabis cultivation. The auditor went so far as to recommend that UDAF scrap it and start over.

The verdict said that JLPR also contained emails that “indicated that UDAF staff had met informally with some applicants during the open application period. Another document was an affidavit alleging one of the successful licensees hired the former UDAF deputy commissioner who left UDAF in May 2019, just days before the application deadline – and paid him a six-digit conditional fee to help the company obtain a license. “

While the new information might be helpful to JLPR, the Utah appeals court said it would not consider it because it was not included in materials held before the state hearing officer or the state procurement committee.

“In evaluating the Board of Directors’ decision to reject JLPR’s protest, we limit our review to the minutes of the appeal: the materials that were presented to and considered by the officer and the Board of Directors in making the administrative decision in question “wrote Judge Harris. “JLPR’s attempt to add new material that is not in the Administrative Minutes to its pleadings has been inappropriate and we may not be able to consider that material. And when we consider the Board’s decision in the light of the Minutes that it received at the time We cannot say that his decision was arbitrary and capricious or clearly wrong. “

Read the Utah Court of Appeal ruling here: