State regulators revoked the license of a Hot Springs medical marijuana dispensary owner Wednesday, a day before the dispensary is set to ask another state board to approve its sale to a new owner.
The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board stripped Dragan Vicentic of his license to operate Green Springs Medical dispensary at 309 Seneca St. in Hot Springs. The license revocation was the first in the history of the state medical marijuana program, which was created after voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2016.
Vicentic can appeal the decision to circuit court.
Tomorrow, the state Medical Marijuana Commission is set to consider Green Springs Medical’s previously scheduled request to sell its license to Carla McCord, the majority owner of Garland County cultivator Leafology.
ABC officials have said the revoked license is not transferable, calling into question whether the Medical Marijuana Commission can approve the sale at tomorrow’s meeting.
At Wednesday’s meeting, ABC Board members heard about five hours of testimony from a pair of attorneys who presented the state’s case. They sounded exasperated with what it said were fruitless attempts to get Vicentic to follow the state’s rules.
ABC Director Christy Bjornson said Vicentic “won’t allow us to regulate him.”
Vicentic stood accused of selling product with expired lab tests more than 1,800 times. Regulators said the dispensary also showed an inability to locate certain products, failed to label products properly and kept its premises unsanitary.
Bjornson and ABC staff attorney Chip Leibovich presented the state’s case and called several agents to testify about their inspections of the dispensary. The testimony included discussion of missing items, expired products, labeling requirements and an agent’s undercover purchase of expired products.
Vicentic’s lawyers questioned the state’s witnesses, but the dispensary owner also spoke on his own behalf. Vicentic seemed to provide unclear, complicated and evasive answers. At one point, Leibovich objected to Vicentic’s “stream of consciousness” testimony.
In her closing argument, Bjornson said Vicentic’s answers did not disprove any of the violations against him. She said his responses were confusing because “he’s not telling you the truth.”
“He will lie to your face,” she said.
In closing, Vicentic’s lawyer, Justin Hurst, described his client as “a hard guy to get along with.” But, “not liking someone does not mean he’s done anything improper,” he said.
Hurst argued that the state had not proved that the charges against Vicentic amounted to endangering anyone, as the state had alleged. The attorney said the board could impose lesser penalties, such as a suspension rather than revocation, which he had earlier described as the “death penalty.”
All board members voted in favor of upholding all but one of Bjornson’s allegations against Vicentic, as well as her decision to revoke the license. They did not uphold one allegation that said Vicentic had not cooperated with ABC enforcement.
The ABC board also signed an order that will allow Vicentic to sell his existing products to other medical marijuana licensees in the next 30 days or dispose of them. ABC spokesman Scott Hardin said the agency was in the process Wednesday afternoon of removing the dispensary from BioTrack, the state’s inventory tracking system, which would prevent the store from carrying out sales.