[[{“value”:”
Storm Nolan, the Fort Smith hotelier who co-owns the legally embattled River Valley Relief Cultivation, made some points to Whispers last week about an appeal he’s made to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
His goal is to save his medical cannabis license, which the Medical Marijuana Commission moved to revoke after a circuit judge found it was improperly granted.
Nolan faulted Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herbert T. Wright for citing the cultivation’s site’s proximity to a “school” as a violation of licensing rules. The institution is the Sebastian County Juvenile Detention Center. “Amendment 98 and the MMC rules do not recognize a juvenile detention center as a school,” Nolan told Arkansas Business in an email.
Last year, the state Supreme Court reversed a similar decision Wright had issued in 2022, finding that he had erred in denying Nolan’s motion to intervene in the case. The justices sent the case back to Wright, and he again ruled against Nolan in December. The plaintiff in the first lawsuit, as well as the modified case now under appeal, is 2600 Holdings, a cultivation license rival. The plaintiffs in the initial lawsuit were the state and its Department of Finance & Administration, which oversees the MMC. The amended complaint also named Nolan as a defendant.
Nolan took issue with Wright’s ruling that while the state issued the cultivation license to him as an individual, “he made his initial application while being backed by an entity that no longer existed at the time of the award of a license.”
Wright found that “on March 20, 2019, Mr. Nolan filed Articles of Dissolution for River Valley Production, LLC, with the Arkansas Secretary of State.”
Nolan’s response? “The MMC issued the license to me, the applicant listed on the application,” the email said. “We are also operating under the entity named in our application.”
He pointed out that the application lists “Bennett (Storm) Scott Nolan II” as the name of the applicant, and “River Valley Production, LLC” as the business name, doing business as River Valley Relief Cultivation.
“}]] Storm Nolan appeals to save his cannabis license, disputing judge’s ruling and entity status; case heads to Arkansas Supreme Court again. Read More
