By Rick Rillito
Mohit “Moe” Asnani and Charles “Chip” Boyden are learning the hard way that writing big checks doesn’t solve everything. Sometimes it can cause big problems.
Moe and Chip own multiple marijuana dispensaries in Tucson. In 2022, after Arizona awarded 26 new “social equity” marijuana licenses related to recreational marijuana , Moe and Chip had a plan to expand their position in the industry. The plan was simple: target unsophisticated majority owners of entities awarded social equity licenses, and offer them lots of money. Those targeted owners would be less likely to appreciate the legal perils of what Moe and Chip would propose.
Anavel Vasquez was qualified to be the majority owner of an entity applying for a social equity license. She lived in a neighborhood historically disproportionately impacted by previous marijuana laws and her household fell below a certain economic threshold. Vasquez didn’t have the know-how or the means ($4,000 per application) to apply for a social equity license on her own. Vasquez agreed to work with investors, Helping Handz, LLC and Investing in the Future, LLC. They handled every financial and logistical aspect of the application process in return for a minority stake in the entity applying for the license, Juicy Joint I LLC, as well as Vasquez’s agreement to ultimately own and operate a dispensary under this agreed-upon business structure. Mike Halow, the manager of Helping Handing Handz and Investing in the Future, has devoted plenty of time, effort and resources assisting Vasquez and others in similar situations in navigating this process. That’s because there are potential mutual benefits. Read more about the people Halow helped here. Similar business arrangements became common place in the industry—as Moe Asnani and Chip Boyden knew well and of which they sought to take advantage.
When the social equity licenses were officially awarded on April 8, 2022, Moe and Chip wasted no time targeting individuals like Anavel Vasquez to abandon their business relationships to do business with them. As they immediately advertised on their website (Social Equity 2022 – AB46 Investments): “NO MATTER WHAT YOU HAVE SIGNED, 51% OWNERS HAVE OPTIONS.” Moe and Chip also sent letters to multiple majority owners of awarded entities, inviting a call to discuss business opportunities with them.
Vasquez responded to Moe and Chip’s offer the same week the social equity licenses were awarded. By late April 2022, Moe and Chip had convinced Vasquez to abandon her business relationship with her Juicy Joint co-members to come and do business with them. In exchange she would get $2.7 million and a 51% interest in the entity, MENVAS22 LLC, to which the license awarded was ultimately transferred. Moe and Chip even convinced Vasquez she didn’t need to tell her Juicy Joint co-members about the transaction and that she could pocket all of the money for herself.
After the transactions were completed, and Vasquez’s Juicy Joint co-members learned what had happened, the Juicy Joint co-members went to court and initiated arbitration against Vasquez. Moe and Chip saw this coming. They agreed to fund litigation costs against Vasquez’s Juicy Joint co-members up to $1 million and strategically assist in the litigation, which they did. It went poorly for Moe, Chip and Vasquez. The arbitration found the transactions claiming to transfer the license to MENVAS22 were of no effect. And Vasquez was expelled from Juicy Joint for breaching contractual and fiduciary duties.
The arbitration award has now been confirmed. During an oral argument on the arbitration award, an Arizona superior court judge commented that Vasquez “stole” the license. The court has also threatened sanctions against MENVAS22 for litigation positions they had taken.
Moe and Chip’s legal failures motivated what appears to be an obsessive desire to try “win” in other arenas, or just cause Mike Halow and his companies to “lose”. None have been successful. For example, MENVAS22 has lodged complaints against Halow with the Arizona Department of Health Services (which regulates the sale of cannabis in Arizona), claiming he should not be permitted to own a social equity license. According to public filings, the Department was not able to substantiate MENVAS22’s allegations. As another example, a lobbyist associated with Moe Asnani supported legislation that would have stripped all current holders of social equity licenses and put the licenses back under the control of the original majority owners (such as Vasquez). That legislation also failed, despite substantial political donations from Moe to, among others, Governor Katie Hobbs.
Moe and Chip have also devoted substantial resources in the court of public opinion, going to nearly any media outlet willing to listen, including the Arizona Republic.
Using the same arguments rejected in arbitration and in court, they convinced multiple media outlets to blindly repeat rejected narratives. The scheme apparently worked. A google search shows multiple stories that claim Mike Halow is somehow responsible for the legal failures Anavel Vasquez experienced because of her dealings with Moe and Chip. In reality Halow was just protecting Juicy Joint’s interest in the License. What’s missing from these stories is any mention of how Moe and Chip led Vasquez to walk this destructive path for their own gain.
Through his companies, Halow has addressed these issues in court . Juicy Joint, Helping Handz and Investing in the Future have brought claims against Moe and Chip, and others, for assisting Vasquez breach her contract. Maybe it’s time for the media to look at the true cause of the mess Vasquez finds herself and the damage it has done to the social equity ownership program.