The Docket: ‘Too Close to the Line’

In a federal lawsuit filed last week, two men and two corporations allege the Onslow County Sheriff’s Office ransacked their stores and illegally seized thousands of legal hemp products. One of the men said deputies came to his house and left him handcuffed outside while they entered his home without consent or a search warrant. 

The lawsuit is a response to Operation Vapor Trail, which resulted in raids of 71 tobacco and convenience stores and the seizure of millions of dollars in legal hemp products and cash on April 3. Criminal charges were later filed against three of the plaintiffs in this case: Tareq Alsaede, 53 Mini Mart & Tobacco 2 LLC and Hubert Tobacco Inc. Another plaintiff, Muammer Saleh, said sheriff’s deputies handcuffed and searched his house without a warrant or probable cause but that he was never charged with a crime. 

Onslow County Sheriff Chris Thomas, whom the suit alleges helped lead the raids, was out of the office Friday and could not be reached for comment. Trevor Dunnell, public information officer for the sheriff’s office, said that Thomas had not been served with the lawsuit.

“We cannot comment on litigation that is pending in court,” he said. 

The suit alleges that officers dressed in SWAT gear and guns drawn entered the stores. The officers did not have body cameras, and they disabled surveillance cameras as they ransacked the stores, according to the suit. Alseade and Hubert Tobacco’s owners all purchased legal hemp from national wholesalers who provided a “certificate of analysis” that confirmed that the hemp products had tested at or below 0.3 percent Delta-9 THC, which is legal to possess and to sell in North Carolina. 

Abraham Rubert-Schewel, who represents the plaintiffs, said in the lawsuit that he wrote to Thomas, informing him that the raid was done without sufficient probable cause and that the products they seized were clearly marked as legal hemp. But on November 8, the sheriff’s office filed charges against the plaintiffs. 

At 8:30 a.m. that same day, deputies showed up at Saleh’s house. Sheriff’s deputies placed him in handcuffs, while Saleh had only a towel wrapped around his waist. Deputies  then took Saleh into his bedroom and allowed him to dress, before leaving him handcuffed outside for 30 minutes. When the deputies returned, they took off the handcuffs and didn’t charge him. 

The lawsuit alleges that the sheriff’s office targeted businesses owned by people from the Middle East, while stores with white owners were allowed to continue selling legal hemp. The plaintiffs say that the actions of the sheriff’s office have made it nearly impossible for them to benefit from the “fruits of their labor.” 

Two months after the raids, Onslow County Sheriff’s Lt. Jay Floyd told Rubert-Schewel in a phone call that the goal was to “run them out” of town, and that  hemp products containing multiple types of cannabinoids would be seized. All hemp products–even those with packaging identifying them as legal–were “too close to the line,” he said.

The lawsuit also takes aim at the sheriff’s office’s testing protocols. The sheriff’s office uses a process called gas chromatography, which can turn the chemical composition of legal hemp to illegal marijuana. The lawsuit said that the sheriff’s office has access to a more accurate test, liquid chromatography, but chooses not to use it. 

—Michael Hewlett

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Out of Office

As online conferencing technology makes it easier to take part in meetings from far-flung places, a former Pinehurst Village council member turned to the courts to find out if simultaneous email exchanges between a majority of members of an elected body also constitutes a “meeting.”

Kevin Drum, owner of the Drum & Quill pub, was a member of the council in 2021 when questions arose about a heated email exchange he had with the head of a Pinehurst business booster organization. The mayor at the time and two other council members were part of a days-long email exchange afterward with the town attorney and manager considering a possible public censure of Drum.

The censure did not occur, but rancor over the possibility lingered after Drum lost his bid for re-election later that year. In 2022, he filed a lawsuit against the mayor, a council member, and the Village of Pinehurst contending they violated the state’s open meetings law by doing public business over email.

In May, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the North Carolina Press Association, the Associated Press, Axios Media, Gannett, Gray Media Group, Hearst Corporation, McClatchy, WRAL, and WTVD filed a motion seeking to file an amici brief supporting Drum because of the questions it posed about public access.

“The issues in this case will have broad impacts on the news media, who often take part in public meetings so that they can provide the public with information about time-sensitive and important decisions that affect North Carolinian’s daily lives,” counsel for the coalition wrote in the May motion.

The state Court of Appeals issued a ruling on December 3 rejecting Drum’s contentions.

“In reviewing the legislature’s use of simultaneous communication in statute, e-mail is not considered a simultaneous communication subject to open meetings requirements but rather work product subject to public records requests,” Judge April Wood wrote in an opinion supported by fellow Republican judges Chris Dillon and John Tyson. In the opinion, the judges also note that “the vast majority of the communication” over email was between the mayor, the village attorney, and manager, which did not constitute a majority of the council.

One council member included in the email exchanges only generated “two emails containing seven sentences less than ninety words over the course of five days,” according to the ruling. That, the judges ruled, was “not engaging in ‘simultaneous communication,’ ‘conducting hearings, participating in deliberations, or voting upon or otherwise transacting the public business,'” Wood wrote.

“Therefore, the council members did not deliberate, vote or otherwise complete business via e-mail as an ‘end-run’ around mandated public deliberation,” Wood wrote. “Rather, a few members of the council, one of who was also the mayor, consulted with the Village Attorney and the Village Manager to ensure they were prepared for the next open Village Council meeting.”

—Anne Blythe

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Keep on Trucking

A Jacksonville business owner who wants to host food trucks on her property got good news from the state Court of Appeals last week.

Nicole Gonzalez, owner of Northwoods Urban Farm, a general store and small-engine repair shop, went to court in December 2022 after finding out she could not host The Spot, a food truck owned by Marine veteran Anthony Proctor, and the Cheesesteak Hustle, a truck owned by veteran Octavius “Ray” Raymond, on her commercial lot.

On December 3, a three-judge panel overturned a trial judge’s blanket dismissal of the lawsuit against Jacksonville challenging the city’s development ordinance that limits where the trucks can sell food and put up advertising.

Gonzalez and the truck owners contend that rules have made it impossible for the trucks to operate within more than 96 percent of the city.

Jacksonville adopted a Unified Development Ordinance in 2014 that includes zoning maps where food trucks can sell their fare and other regulations that must be met before they can operate on private property.

The zoning rules:

• Prohibit property owners from hosting a food truck if the lot is within 250 feet of another food truck, restaurant or residential dwelling;
• Limit their advertising to one 5 x 5 sign with no external lighting no farther than 20 feet from a truck; and
• Require truck owners who are residents to pay an annual $300 fee, which goes up to $500 for non-residents.

The Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm based in Arlington, Virginia, has taken up the case as one of a series of suits helping food truck owners challenge laws that they say impinge on their right to earn a living.

“The restrictions Jacksonville’s City Council put on food trucks serve no legitimate purpose,” said Bob Belden, an Institute for Justice attorney. “Not only are these rules hurting entrepreneurs, but they also hurt the people of Jacksonville by denying them a convenient way to get something to eat. The City Council is just trying to protect brick-and-mortar restaurant profits from competition, and that’s no role for the government.”

The city has argued that it is within its bounds to include such regulations in its development and zoning ordinances and sought to dismiss the case in 2023. In January, a Superior Court judge granted that request.

The court of appeals judges—Republicans Jefferson Griffin and John Tyson and Democrat Allegra Collins—ruled that the city’s development ordinance treated food truck owners differently from other eating establishments.

A “specialty-eating establishment like a bakery, a coffee shop, or an ice cream shop,” Griffin wrote in the unanimous opinion, could open on eligible property next door to a restaurant or residential lot while a food truck “offering the very same baked goods, coffee, or ice cream could not.”

The appeals court ruling means the lawsuit can now proceed in Superior Court.

—Anne Blythe

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Around The State

What We’ve Learned About the Federal Probe in Columbus County 

Federal investigators have demanded extensive information about finances and use of force at the sheriff’s office.

The Lonesome Death of Marvin ‘Popcorn’ Sutton

Fifteen years after the death of a tradition-bearer, an unlikely folk hero emerges in the Carolina mountains.

Why This Western N.C. Republican Voted Against the Helene Relief Bill

State Rep. Mark Pless says the legislation, which also strips power from Democrats, doesn’t do much for his area.