Two Bayview warehouses have been acting as illegal indoor cannabis grows for over a year, according to a new lawsuit from City Attorney David Chiu, after state agents raided and found nearly 6,000 plants at the two facilities.
You may not realize that there are legal and fully compliant cannabis farms right here in San Francisco. These tend to be indoor grows at generic looking warehouses, so ruthless cannabis thieves can’t tell what’s really inside, and these legal facilities tend to be concentrated in the Bayview, Dogpatch, and Potrero Hill warehouse districts.
But a Thursday press release from SF City Attorney David Chiu says that two Bayview warehouses have been acting as illegal indoor cannabis grows for at least a year and a half. And he can be confident of this. A pair of 2023 raids on these properties by the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) yielded 5,817 cannabis plants, and 300 pounds of “shake,” the leafier, non-bud parts of the plants popular for use in pre-roll joints.
“With thousands of illegal plants seized, the scale of this operation harms all the legitimate cannabis businesses,” Chiu said in that press release. “Our legal cannabis merchants are following the rules, paying taxes, providing safe products, and supporting our local economy. These property owners assisted their tenants in breaking the rules to make a profit. These illegal grow houses were rife with building code violations and fire safety issues, demonstrating why our cannabis regulatory system is so important."
One of these warehouses is seen above, at 1355 Fitzgerald Avenue. That Google Street View photo was taken in May 2022, so we don’t know whether weed was being grown there at the time. (And honestly, the door to the place is being kept wide open in the photo.) But according to Chiu’s full lawsuit, the place was raided on October 25, 2023, and DCC agents found more than 3,500 plants.
The owner of the building is PAA Property, whose president and manager is David Chi-Yu Lai. According to the lawsuit, “Lai was interviewed by DCC. He initially claimed to know nothing about the cannabis cultivation at 1355 Fitzgerald Avenue. After he was confronted with surveillance photographs showing him entering the warehouse, he admitted to knowing about the cultivation operation. He also admitted to knowing about the cannabis cultivation at 1510 Wallace Avenue.”
As far as 1510 Wallace Avenue goes, the lawsuit says that on May 17, 2023, “an investigator noted the odor of cannabis while they were standing next to 1510 Wallace Ave. On May 23, 2023, DCC Det. Dennis Prizmich smelled cannabis when the property’s garage door was opened. Det. Prizmich noted an unusual level of security at the property.”
Chiu’s lawsuit is not a criminal complaint, and just demands Lai and other defendants cease these activities, while levying penalties totaling $167,500. But it seems likely that Lai and the other defendants will face criminal charges from either San Francisco law enforcement or the state of California.
Image: Large Indoor Marijuana Commercial Growing Operation With Fans, Greenhouse, Equipment For Growing High Quality Herb. Cannabis Field Growing For Legal Recreational Use in Washington State (Getty Images)
