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CEO and co-owner of the embattled La Mota cannabis chain Rosa Cazares remains vice chair of the city of Portland’s Cannabis Policy Oversight Team despite millions in tax liens and a minefield of lawsuits alleging nonpayment of bills faced by her, her longtime partner and the companies they control.
Cazares runs La Mota, which owns and operates more than 30 dispensaries across the state, with her longtime partner, Aaron Mitchell. The two moved from Florida to Oregon around 2009 and expanded quickly once the state legalized recreational marijuana in 2015, growing to become the second-largest cannabis dispensary chain in the state. But as they grew, so did their legal and financial woes: WW found that the couple and the companies they control have been issued over $7 million in state and federal tax liens and have been sued more than two dozen times in Oregon circuit courts, many of the complaints alleging unpaid bills.
After WW published its March 29 cover story detailing the chain’s issues, the political training academy Emerge Oregon removed Cazares from its board, where she served as vice chair. Two elected officials, U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle and Oregon Labor Commissioner Christina Stevenson, said they wouldn’t accept future campaign contributions from the couple or the companies they control. A state agency that granted $554,000 to a nonprofit co-founded by Cazares abruptly terminated the grant and demanded the remainder of the unspent money back.
Portland officials, however, have so far kept Cazares on the city’s cannabis policy team, which also advises the city on marijuana sales taxes.
Spokesman for the Bureau of Development Services Ken Ray says the bureau’s leadership “has discussed Ms. Cazares’ participation on CPOT” but says a “decision has not yet been made about her membership.”
Ray declined to comment further.