“Our goal is to have them produce the information associated with the chain of custody of that money, and to just return it. That’s really it,” said Charles Walton, an attorney representing Mr. Nice Guys, which first opened in 2014.
The company’s website, marked by its signature happy face logo, lists an array of cannabis products like THC lollipops, gummies and chips. Each item includes a description reminding the shopper that the “dollar amount goes toward purchase of art print” and the pictured item “is your gift.” Mr. Nice Guys has been raided at least three other times at the company’s multiple locations around the city, Walton said.
The system is a part of the complex and legally ambiguous market that emerged in D.C. after voters in 2014 passed Initiative 71, legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. Congress, which has regulatory oversight over D.C., blocked city officials from establishing a legal recreational market.
Instead of legal recreational dispensaries, a network of shops quickly emerged under a provision of Initiative 71 that allows adults to transfer up to one ounce of marijuana to another adult as long as “no money, goods, or services are exchanged.” The stores instead sell other products like apparel, art or motivational speeches — for seemingly high prices — and give customers a “gift” of marijuana with their purchase.
The shops remain mostly unregulated, and police still occasionally raid stores and arrest employees at the dozens of gifting shops across the district. The searches can be driven by complaints about the shops or other crime or violence connected with a shop, police said.
Over the past year, the City Council has initiated efforts to crack down on enforcement of the shops, which some council members have said are taking business from the city’s seven licensed medical dispensaries.
In April, the council narrowly struck down a bill that would have allowed D.C. to impose harsh civil fines on gifting shops, then in early August, the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) announced that it would be conducting inspections of the gifting shops for health code, tax and licensing violations, but an ABRA spokesperson said in an email that the start of inspections has been paused.
The lawsuit filed last week focuses on two raids that occurred on the same day in August 2021, when police with warrants searched two Mr. Nice Guys locations at 409 Eighth Street SE and 1922 Ninth Street NW.
According to the lawsuit, police seized more than $67,000 and destroyed two ATMs at the shop while searching the Ninth Street location. An MPD spokesperson said three people were arrested at the store and charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance. The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia chose not to prosecute those who were arrested, according to the lawsuit.
Three people were also arrested after the search of the Eighth Street shop, according to court records. Two were charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and one, who was dressed as a security guard, was charged with possession with intent to distribute while armed, along with other charges for possessing an unregistered firearm without a license.
Police seized about 15 pounds of marijuana from the shop and about $6,200 of shop money from Damani Batchler, an employee who was named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, according to court records and the complaint. Batchler entered a deferred prosecution agreement, and once he completed community service hours the charges were dismissed.
Lawyers for Mr. Nice Guys argue in court filings that because all the charges were either dismissed or not prosecuted, the money seized from the shop should no longer be required as evidence and returned.
“Defendant District of Columbia’s D.C. police (‘MPD’) routinely and unlawfully holds cash seized from individuals who have been arrested — many of whom are never charged with a crime — for months or even years past the point where the government might have any continuing legitimate interest in retaining said cash while providing no process to challenge that retention,” the lawsuit reads.
MPD directed questions regarding the case to the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, which declined to comment citing the ongoing litigation. A spokesperson for Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who is also named in the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment.
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