The federal indictment of Chula Vista’s first cannabis licensee has forced city officials to consider how seriously they want to police the people they allow to sell pot legally in their own backyard.
So far, they are taking a cautious approach.
Andres Camberos, who became the first person licensed to market recreational marijuana in Chula Vista, was indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego last month along with his sister, Adriana Camberos, on charges unrelated to his company, Grasshopper Dispensary.
The siblings were accused in an 11-count indictment of overseeing a broad and long-running scheme to buy groceries and other consumer goods from U.S. companies at a steep discount on the promise that they would sell the products in Mexico.
They both pleaded not guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy and related charges at court appearances last month and were released on $50,000 bonds. Neither responded to requests for comment.
Now Chula Vista officials are wrestling with how to respond to the federal charges.
Any decision about whether to suspend or revoke the cannabis license, which appears to be a first for Chula Vista, is the responsibility of the city manager.
California law allows the Department of Cannabis Control to suspend or revoke a license for serious criminal convictions, including fraud. The Chula Vista marijuana ordinance is stricter, permitting the city to impose penalties as soon as a licensee is charged with a serious crime.
More than five years ago when drafting the cannabis ordinance, the City Council debated whether a felony arrest — not just a conviction — should be grounds for suspension or revocation of a license.
Though concerns were raised about the potential for lawsuits, officials wanted to start off tough, especially because illegal dispensaries had been a thorn in the city’s side for many years.
More than a month after the federal indictments, city officials have yet to say how they will respond.
“The city of Chula Vista is reviewing the facts and circumstances surrounding the charges against Mr. Camberos to determine the appropriate next steps in accordance with principles of due process,” spokesperson Michele Clock said in a statement.
Clock declined to elaborate on what the ongoing review entails or when the city may take action against the Grasshopper licensee.
At the Grasshopper dispensary on April 20, 2021, a line formed outside for the official grand opening of Chula Vista’s first cannabis dispensary.
(Nelvin C. Cepeda/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
But others across the South Bay community are not waiting. They want city officials to take action against Camberos, who with his sister also has a history of cultivating political relationships and contributing to local political campaigns.
“Under no circumstances should Chula Vista cannabis shops be run by individuals under serious criminal indictment,” Marco Verdugo, a candidate for Chula Vista city attorney, said in a news release last week. “It’s unsafe, it’s unethical and unacceptable.”
Laura Wilkinson Sinton, who has tried to open cannabis dispensaries of her own in Chula Vista, made a similar critique.
Sinton successfully sued Chula Vista for violating its marijuana permitting process when it rejected her applications. A court ordered the city to reprocess her bids for storefronts. The city has yet to do so.
“Chula Vista has been proven by the courts to arbitrarily and capriciously disregard its own laws in regards to cannabis,” Sinton said by email. “The Chula Vista ordinance is clear on how strict the code intention is on this with cannabis operators.
“The city should be expected to follow its own laws,” she said.
The two defendants in the federal indictment are familiar to some of the city’s leaders.
Three years ago, Andres Camberos asked then-Councilmember John McCann to sponsor an application to then-President Donald Trump to commute the prison sentence his sister received following an earlier conviction for trafficking counterfeit goods.
McCann, now the Chula Vista mayor, formally asked the White House to commute the sentence of Adriana Camberos — then known as Adriana Shayota. Trump approved the request Jan. 20, 2021, in the final hours of his administration.
Two years ago, in publicly explaining his decision to intervene, McCann told The San Diego Union-Tribune that he knew Andres Camberos from high school and agreed to support the request to commute his sister’s prison sentence when asked.
“I believe she got caught up in something she did not fully know about,” McCann told the newspaper. He called her “an incredibly good person” who deserved to be freed.
Asked last week why Chula Vista had not revoked Grasshopper’s license in the wake of the indictments, McCann downplayed his relationship with the Cameros family and said he wasn’t involved with such regulatory decisions.
“I supported a reduction of the sentence for Adriana Shayota because I believed at the time, based upon information provided by her attorney and her family, that she had been manipulated by her now ex-husband,” he said by email.
“I did not know her brother in high school for the simple reason that we attended school about 10 years apart,” McCann also said. He is 54 years old, and Andres Camberos is 43, according to public databases.
Adriana Camberos and Andres Camberos donated the city’s maximum of $360 each to McCann’s winning mayoral campaign, city election filings show.
The mayor would not reconcile what he told the Union-Tribune in 2021 with his statement last week. He said he first met Andres Camberos during a tour of Grasshopper more than two years ago after the city licensed it.
“I only spoke to him a few times over the last several years since the tour,” he wrote.
The mayor also said elected officials had no role in regulating pot licensees. Instead, he said, the mayor and council voted to put the city manager in charge of decisions involving the approval or regulation of cannabis licensees.
“City staffers are responsible for oversight and, thus, all questions regarding this matter should be directed to the city manager’s office,” McCann wrote.
The Grasshopper Dispensary along Kuhn Drive also was the subject of a formal complaint filed with Chula Vista police in July. The complaint accused the pot shop of monopolizing a portion of its shared parking lot where drivers can pull up and collect their orders.
“Random cars will pull up and an armed guard will go out with a Grasshopper employee and hand over their drugs,” the complaint said. “This is being done in front of children and families.”
Clock said the police investigation turned up nothing illegal. “The city can confirm that a CVPD investigation was conducted related to the complaint and no violation was found,” she said by email.
Grasshopper also has been allowed by the city to co-sponsor outdoor movie events at Memorial Park this summer catered to all ages.
The state and city have rules prohibiting advertising cannabis or related products at events held in certain areas, including public parks, where much of the audience is likely to be younger than 21 and unable to legally purchase cannabis products.
Clock said the city made sure that Grasshopper complied with the rules.
Co-sponsoring events is one of several ways cannabis companies can support the community, which the city requires as a separate condition to obtain a permit, she said.
