Cannabis Businesses Drop Ethics Complaints Against Four Councilmembers

Cannabis businesses withdrew ethics complaints against four City Councilmembers after their attorney acknowledged an error: incorrectly identifying someone as Councilmember Jim Perry at a March 2025 Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce event that formed the basis of the allegations.

In an email obtained by the Raincross Gazette, attorney Dana Cisneros notified the city clerk's office Tuesday that her clients are withdrawing complaints against Councilmembers Chuck Conder, Sean Mill, Jim Perry, and Steven Robillard. She cited the misidentification that undermined the complaints' foundation and procedural issues with the Board of Ethics process.

The city attorney's office provided photographs that showed Frank Arreola, a staffer in Councilmember Chuck Conder's office, at the March 13, 2025 "Good Morning Riverside" breakfast event at the Mission Inn Hotel—not Perry.

"It appears [Damian Martin] did misidentify someone as Councilmember Perry based on photographs finally received from the City and the Chamber," Cisneros wrote in her withdrawal notice. "Please extend our apologies to the council members for this inconvenience and misidentification.”

The admission validates Perry's September 4 declaration to the board that he was not at the Chamber event.

Attorney Damian Martin, who filed the original complaints based on the misidentification, is now under investigation by the California State Bar.

Mill said the State Bar's Office of Chief Trial Counsel notified him in late October that his complaint against Martin "has been forwarded for further investigation" and assigned to an investigator and legal advisor.

Perry questioned why Martin didn't verify attendees before filing sworn declarations. "It seems like the easiest thing when he saw this [alleged] violation... that he would have just simply taken a photo," Perry said.

"You would think that as an officer of the court Damian Martin would have been more thorough before signing a sworn declaration making false claims," Mill told the Raincross Gazette. "As a result of his reckless disregard of the truth he is under investigation by the State Bar of California for submitting false testimony under oath."

Mill characterized the complaints as "simply a weak effort to harass and intimidate myself and my colleagues because they didn't like the outcome of the Council vote on dispensaries."

The misidentification undermined the complaints. Without Perry's presence, only three councilmembers attended the Chamber event—eliminating the quorum necessary for the alleged Brown Act violation that formed the basis of the complaints. The Brown Act is California's open meetings law.

Five months after the March Chamber event, attorney Damian Martin filed the complaints in August 2025. All four councilmembers were originally named. The board had scheduled formal hearings after determining in September that sufficient evidence existed to proceed.

Both Mill and Robillard expressed frustration that the board advanced the complaints to hearings despite what they viewed as overwhelming evidence against the allegations, including Perry's sworn statement that he was not present.

Perry, who has “been doing this long enough,” said the false allegation didn't bother him much. "I knew with this allegation, I knew I wasn't there," Perry said. "I knew this would eventually pan out."

Mill and Robillard both criticized the board's process. "The Board of Ethics chose to ignore the overwhelming evidence presented to them by myself and my colleagues at the pre-hearing, including a sworn statement by Councilmember Perry, and moved the case forward anyway," Mill said. "This was set up where we were presumed guilty and had to prove our innocence."

Robillard said the complaints were "flawed from the beginning, stemming from a small group of disgruntled businesses that were left out of Riverside's cannabis industry." He added that the board process "is too easily used as a political tool rather than serving its intended purpose of ensuring accountability and fairness in city government."

Conder did not respond to requests for comment.

While councilmembers criticized the board for advancing weak complaints, Cisneros also expressed dissatisfaction with the Board of Ethics process, though from the opposite perspective.

"I was mistaken when I initially filed in believing the BOE had some duty to the residents of Riverside to ensure fair practices by the Council and the staff," Cisneros wrote.

Regarding the misidentification, Cisneros said simply: "It happens. I am not interested in pursuing illegitimate claims. My clients and I will always do the right thing, and we did the right thing by withdrawing the complaint regarding the meeting."

Cisneros's withdrawal notice preserves her clients' option to refile. She cited two additional reasons beyond the misidentification. First, the city attorney's office has indicated its position that Brown Act violations fall outside the board's jurisdiction. Second, her clients were "unable to access the evidence and records we would need to prove our case" despite six months of public records requests.

"Should the city attorney's office claim later that we must exhaust the board proceeding before bringing the matter before the Superior Court, or if we uncover additional evidence of City code violations, we reserve the right to refile this complaint with additional evidence," Cisneros wrote.

The ethics complaints emerged from a broader dispute over the city's cannabis licensing process.

The council's March 25 vote reduced the number of cannabis retail permits from 14 to seven, awarding them to the top-ranked applicants. While applicants ranked 15 and beyond received denials they could appeal, those ranked 8-14—including Cisneros's clients—remain in what she called a "perpetual limbo" with no approval, denial, or appeal rights.

Cisneros confirmed her clients are "already in active litigation with the City" over cannabis licensing issues. The litigation originally included Brown Act claims, but those were eliminated after the city attorney's office indicated such violations were not properly before the board.

Martin and his clients at Catalyst Cannabis Co. have been involved in multiple cannabis-related lawsuits across Southern California. In 2021, Catalyst sued the City of Costa Mesa challenging its cannabis licensing process, but dropped the case in 2022 after receiving a permit.

Riverside's commercial cannabis program was still being implemented when the ethics complaints emerged. The City Council approved a cannabis business ordinance in February 2023, opening the door for legal retail cannabis operations after years of prohibition.

The licensing process has involved the City Council establishing rules for the program, including limiting the number of permits and restricting where cannabis retailers can operate. In July 2025, the council voted to ban cannabis retailers from locating in downtown and midtown areas, limiting cannabis businesses to other parts of the city.

The board met Thursday evening and confirmed the complaints had been withdrawn and the scheduled hearings canceled. Cisneros's clients remain in active litigation with the City over cannabis licensing issues, with the withdrawn ethics complaints representing just one front in the broader dispute over Riverside's implementation of its commercial cannabis program.