Opening Westchester County’s first recreational cannabis dispensary in Mount Vernon took a dollop of entrepreneurial moxie, strong connections at City Hall, and the understanding that certain fees might be assessed down the line.

Deep pockets helped, too. Elevate Cannabis Dispensary’s payment of $10,000 in so-called “legalization fees” was paid just hours before the city’s Planning Board held an April 4 hearing on its long-awaited application, a Tax Watch investigation has found.

The payment came several months after the dispensary’s owners had transformed an autobody shop into a state-of-the art retail outlet that opened in December without obtaining a building permit, certificate of occupancy or Planning Board approval.

None of those approvals were in place when Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard and the executive director of the New York Office of Cannabis Management snipped the ribbon at Elevate’s grand opening on Feb. 20.

Payment of the $10,000 fee was requested verbally, according to Patterson-Howard’s spokesman. It appears that the fee was assessed so Elevate could make amends for embarking on a development that skipped several steps in the process routinely complied with by other Mount Vernon businesses.

Rich Thomas: City officials wanted Elevate to open

According to Elevate spokesman Richard Thomas, the approval process was aided by City Councilwoman Caitlin Gleason, who he said helped shepherd the project through the Building Department, with the support of Patterson-Howard and Robin Mack, director of the Mount Vernon Industrial Development Agency.

Thomas detailed the city’s involvement at Elevate’s celebration of cannabis culture on April 20 at the dispensary’s South Terrace Avenue parking lot, which featured a DJ, food trucks, and the occasional whiff of burnt cannabis in the air.

“In this case, it was the city’s priority to make sure the industry got started,” said Thomas, who served as Mount Vernon mayor from 2016 to 2019.

Thomas said that Elevate did not rely on intermediaries called expeditors who can help builders win cooperation at the city’s oft-criticized Building Department. Instead, Elevate turned to its allies in Democrat-controlled City Hall.

“There was a whole conversation across all of the offices,” Thomas said. “We were told everything was moving forward. The Council was involved. The mayor’s office fully knew and was fully aware. They provided the temporary certificate of occupancy, based on those discussions.”

City Director of Communications Tim Allen declined comment on the analysis offered by Thomas.

Gleason, in a statement issued Tuesday morning, denied involvement in the dispensary's approval process.

"Contrary to the reported statement by a spokesman for the business, neither myself, nor the Council had a role in the work of the Department of Buildings or the permitting process," said Gleason, who serves as City Council president. "As with all constituents or business owners who ask for guidance, Councilmembers refer interested parties to the relevant departments and personnel within the city of Mount Vernon. We, the City Council, did not assist in the approval process or have a role in levying any fees on behalf of the city."

Elevate's engineer suddenly bails on project

One step skipped by Elevate was approval by the Mount Vernon Planning Board, which would allow the dispensary to obtain a building permit and a certificate of occupancy to open for business.

After the legalization fees were paid on April 4, professional engineer Shahin Badaly, who filed the project's application for Elevate, told the Planning Board how Elevate’s proposal complied with city zoning and state fire codes.

That night, it appeared that Elevate’s timely payment of $10,000 was money well spent. Board members agreed to instruct staff to prepare an approval resolution for its May 8 meeting.

That approval was not forthcoming, however. Badaly suddenly withdrew his representation as Elevate’s engineer on May 7, reneging on his assertion a month earlier that the plan complied with city zoning. He also questioned the plan’s compliance with the state fire code.

His action came five months after Badaly voluntarily surrendered his license to practice engineering in New York City after failing several audits, according to the NYC Department of Buildings.

In a letter read by Planning Board Chair Darryl Selsey, Badaly wrote that he’d made a recent visit to Elevate, only to realize that the business needed nine more parking spaces, a loading dock, and a sprinkler system for its second floor.

That meant any approvals by the Planning Board were premature, which could leave the dispensary in legal limbo for months to come.

“This application should not be considered by the Planning Board without having obtained approvals by the Zoning Board of Appeals for several area variances,” Badaly wrote.

Selsey adjourned the matter for at least another month as the city evaluates what to do with an application whose crucial conclusions were repudiated by the professional engineer who submitted it.

Former city Planning Commissioner Vince Ferrandino, who had called on the board to reject Elevate application, said it was time for the city to shut down Elevate until all approvals are forthcoming.

"This is a vindication for all that has been previously been said, by myself and others, including the media, about the deficiencies of this application and its blatant disregard for obtaining all legal approvals from the planning board, zoning board and building department, prior to opening for business, without proper permits, months ago," he said.

Thomas said the dispensary owners, who were blindsided by Badaly’s withdrawal letter, stand by Badaly’s earlier submission.

“It was a big surprise,” said Thomas. “Elevate remains in compliance, based on the plans submitted for approval. We are open for business and ready to help people get elevated.”

What's the deal with legalization fee?

Tax Watch learned of Mount Vernon’s legalization fees in a March 29 posting by Patterson-Howard on her Facebook page, in which she took issue with my column that day that explored the dispensary’s lack of crucial municipal approvals.

My column reported that the dispensary had received a temporary certificate of occupancy eight days after the ribbon-cutting. That document stated that approval was based on Elevate’s conformance with approved plans detailed in its building permit.

But Elevate had yet to obtain the building permit. Those plans could not be finalized until the Planning Board had ruled on the application.

At the time, Patterson-Howard insisted that Elevate had both won state licensure and city zoning approval.

“There are no Life/Safety issues,” she wrote on Facebook. “State approvals and zoning permissions were done. Legalization fees were assessed and paid, and all inspections completed. Please tell me what CRUCIAL steps were missed? None.”

Patterson-Howard said her administration would never sanction a ribbon-cutting unless everything was in order.

Said Patterson-Howard: “City-sanctioned ribbon cuttings do not occur until the City is able to sign off on the work.”

Fee was verbal, with no documentation

It turned out that the city's sign-off for the Feb. 20 grand opening did not require payment of the legalization fees that the city said it assessed four months earlier in October.

Under the Mount Vernon building code, a legalization fee is charged when an application is filed to legalize a structure where work has been performed without a permit. Such an application did not appear in the parcel's Building Department folder I reviewed in March under the Freedom of Information Law.

When governments take action, such as assessing fees of $10,000 on a property owner to bring a project in compliance with local building laws, those actions are typically put in writing. Not so with Mount Vernon’s $10,000 legalization fee imposed on Elevate.

My Freedom of Information request to Mount Vernon was rejected because no such document existed.

City Communications Director Allen said the October assessment of $10,000 was “verbal.”

He said Elevate was aware of the requirements, which were set by the Building Department, including those passed along by word-of-mouth.

"The fees were part of the conditions," he said.

Opening the dispensary, however, was not contingent upon paying the fee. It wasn’t paid when Elevate opened for online sales and deliveries in December. It wasn’t paid before the ribbon-cutting in February or when the temporary certificate of occupancy was issued later that month.

It was finally paid on April 4, the day of the Planning Board meeting.

“If Elevate was required to pay the fee in October, we would have paid,” Thomas said. “Then it became a request from them when we were about to appear before the Planning Board. We were told to pay the fee. There was still nothing in writing, but we followed the request.”

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David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mount Vernon NY charges cannabis shop $10K in fees with no documents