Cars rush by the unassuming stucco building on the corner of Harrison and Cairo Street that – until recently – had housed one of two pot "churches” in Coachella. The sandy parking lot to the left side of the building, which still sports a large MTC banner – for the Mien Tao Church – sits empty. A piece of paper is taped onto a black metal side door, on it a message in all-caps: “We are closed! We are moving!! #WYLD #grapefruitBlvd”.

After months of litigation, the City of Coachella has won its first fight in a war against two unlicensed marijuana dispensaries that claim to be religious institutions. On December 6, the judge presiding over the case against MTC found in favor of the city, which had requested a lockout.

It is unclear when exactly the ‘church’ first opened its doors, but posts on the MTC Coachella Facebook page go back as far as April 11, 2017. The city’s code enforcement office began sniffing out the location that same month.

After compiling evidence for months, the city took the case to court. In August, they were granted a temporary restraining order, prohibiting MTC from distributing pot to its patrons. But their location on Harrison Street remained open – until this month.

If the hashtag on their handwritten note to visitors is any indication, MTC is hoping to secure a license for the newly envisioned cannabis retail zone on Grapefruit Blvd.

The city is currently in the process of amending its ordinance to allow cannabis retail. Once the ordinance has been amended, the city council will have to come up with a way to distribute licenses.

One of the questions being discussed is whether entities or individuals who have been involved in litigation with the city over the unlicensed distribution of cannabis before should be able to apply for a license.

For Mayor Steve Hernandez the answer is no. "I don't feel like we should be rewarding that behavior," Hernandez said. "This industry that has existed in the shadows for a while now has to learn to comply with local and state rules."

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When it comes to combating unlicensed dispensaries, cities have two major options: Raid the dispensary and seize the cash and product inside, or go to court and request a restraining order.

Coachella is not the only city in the Coachella Valley that has seen illegal cannabis stores within its limits. The City of Palm Desert has shut down several dispensaries in the past two decades. “They objected to some extent, and involved legal counsel in some cases, but never really followed through," said City Manager Lauri Aylaian.

The same cannot be said for MTC. In a defense originally led by pot-lawyer Michael Pappas, the organization claimed to be a church, dispensing cannabis as its sacrament.

Pappas eventually disappeared and legal representation of the 'church' changed hands several times since. After the defendants repeatedly failed to appear in court and attempted to evade service of court orders, eventually resulting in the recent lockout.

Despite the months of litigation, operations on Harrison Street had continued, and another 'church' popped up just a few doors down. The Oklevueha Native American Church or ONAC has a long history of fighting for their right to use and dispense cannabis and other drugs such as peyote to their members as part of their spiritual practice, with mixed results.

So far, the City of Coachella has not taken any direct action against ONAC, but city officials told the Desert Sun that a lawsuit was in the works and would be filed as soon as the MTC case is completed.

In Costa Mesa, a raid on a local ONAC chapter made headlines after Pappas, who had been the agent of service for MTC before going AWOL in July, claimed the raid had violated members' rights to religious freedom.

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No formal complaint was ever filed. ONAC did not return to the location on Harbor Boulevard, but the same address is now home to a chapter of MTC

“They may close up shop and open somewhere else, or sometimes they open right back up," said Captain Roy Grace at the Riverside County Sheriff's Department's Thermal station, which covers Coachella.

Instead, the city chose to pursue the case in court, which resulted in last week's lockout. This serves as a protection against lawsuits and complaints on the basis of religious freedom, which if successful could force municipalities and their law enforcement agencies to pay back the value product and value lost in a raid.

“Rather than recklessly go in there, we wanted to make sure that we have all our bases covered," said Coachella City Manager Bill Pattison.

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Taking the case in front of a judge also enables the city to hold the landlord responsible for the legal cost they incurred throughout the process. "This has cost us quite a bit of money," Pattison said. They're now hoping to recover the money by putting a lien on the property, forcing the landlord to pay up or lose the building.

This might seem like a harsh course of action, given that there is no indication the landlord was directly involved in the 'church's' cannabis-dispensing activities.

Landlord and defendant Sylvia Ramirez-Velasquez, filed a request asking to be taken off the lockout order. The city argued that Ramirez-Velasquez did not take the necessary steps to force out MTC, making her partially responsible for the legal costs of the case.

The city hopes that by penalizing landlords for not evicting tenants who violate the city's cannabis ordinance, they can prevent more unlicensed dispensaries from setting up shop and hasten the process of shutting them down if they do.

“It’s a conservative approach, but I believe in the end it will be effective," Pattison said about the city's legal strategy. As for the landlords? “There may have to be some examples made, and that’s unfortunate, but it’s what we have to do," Pattison said.