Lake County treasurer urges listing property owners and major financial interests on cannabis permits to reduce tax-collection burden

Lake County Treasurer-Tax Collector Patrick Sullivan told the Cannabis Ordinance Task Force on March 3 that the county’s current cannabis permit structure is creating recurring enforcement and tax-collection problems because permits “run with the land,” and ownership or financial-interest changes after permits are issued can leave the county unable to identify who is liable for unpaid taxes or compliance problems.

Sullivan said staff repeatedly encounters foreclosures, bankruptcies and multilayered corporate arrangements that make it difficult to determine who controls a permit after the original applicant loses the property or the business changes hands. “This is a permit that runs with the land,” Sullivan said. “We are regularly running into issues where properties are tax defaulted” and the county lacks reliable information about later holders of the permit or secured financial-interest holders.

The treasurer used a local example to illustrate the problem: permits and filings tied to a site called Diamond Jay Ranch involved multiple entities — Titan Valley Land Holdings (the recorded property owner), Terra Firma LLC (a parent entity), Great Kind Farms (a cultivation permit holder), Valhalla Legacy Holding Corporation (manager of the applicant), and a separate lienholder identified as Heart Consciousness Church. Sullivan said staff had to trace public records across several entities to understand who might ultimately control the permit and who could be liable if taxes went unpaid.

Sullivan asked the task force to consider requiring the county permit application to include the property owner and…