Following Court Ruling to Shut Down Dispensary Operations, Big Daddy's Says It's Leaving Chesterfield

After Chesterfield Township and the Michigan Attorney General's Office won the legal battle to shut down dispensary operations at, the controversial business said Thursday it's leaving Chesterfield Township.

Within the next couple weeks, hydroponic supplies will be moved to different Big Daddy's buildings and the township business, along with its currently closed medical marijuana distribution center, will seek to relocate outside of Macomb County.

“We will find another community that’s friendly to us,” Big Daddy's spokesman Rick Thompson said. "We can’t stay where we’re not wanted – even though the people wanted us, the did not.”

The court ruling would have allowed the business to continue to sell cultivating supplies and equipment at the business on Gratiot between 23 Mile and 24 Mile, but Thompson said the warehouse-sized building is far too large for that alone.

The business has not determined where it will reopen. However, it does not believe another Macomb County community would welcome it. Big Daddy's has found more success in Genesee County's Burton, where it is one of multiple dispensaries in the city, Thompson said.

It also has another building on Mack Avenue in Detroit across from Grosse Pointe Park. That will be the new headquarters for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Magazine that has been housed in Chesterfield. Thompson, the magazine's editor, will work out of the Burton office, he said.

Battle to close Big Daddy's attracted Attorney General, drew protests

Macomb County Circuit Court Judge John Foster's Nov. 30 ruling for Big Daddy's to shut down its pot-distribution portion of the business came as a shock to owners and shareholders since legal briefs were not due by then and oral arguments were scheduled for later this month.

"It doesn’t really seem as if they’ve given due process to this issue," said Thompson, suggesting the sped up the process.

In his ruling, the judge stated the dispensary was not protected under the Medical Marihuana Act of Michigan because, "the Act does not permit qualifying patient-to-patient sales but only transfers between qualifying patients and primary caregivers who are connected through a registration system,” Foster was quoted in a Dec. 5 article in The Macomb Daily. “Defendants are not entitled to invoke any immunity offered by the Act.”

A majority of Michigan voters passed the act Nov. 4, 2008. Its legal interpretations have varied, often leading to dispensary closures in various communities in the state.

Chesterfield, its police chief, and the state had deemed Big Daddy's Hydroponics, which opened in summer 2010, a public nuisance and violator of township zoning ordinances. Early last month, dozens of medical marijuana supporters, many of whom are patients, before an evidentiary hearing took place. Soon after, the township Board of Trustees offer from the business.

The township attorney and Michigan Attorney General's Office could not immediately be reached for comment for this story.

Big Daddy's said it will continue work with the Michigan Association of Compassion Centers to advocate medical marijuana patients' rights.

“We will not be stopped in our effort to make this law the protective shield for patients that it was intended to be for the voters,” Thompson said.