A Menominee circuit court judge has dismissed the lead lawsuit challenging the city's marijuana licensing freeze, handing local officials a preliminary win in a legal dispute that has kept cannabis permits in limbo for months. But the company at the center of the fight, Puff Cannabis, is already pointing to a new front - a 38-page lawsuit filed in Oakland County that accuses industry giant Lume Cannabis of secretly bankrolling the ballot initiative that capped Menominee's marijuana stores at nine businesses.
What the Judge Actually Ruled - and What She Didn't
Judge Mary Barglind's April 22 order dismissed Puff's claims on a narrow but decisive procedural ground: Puff had signed a legal waiver when it applied for a license, agreeing not to sue the city. That single commitment, the judge concluded, foreclosed Puff's claims against Menominee. The nine-page ruling did not touch the claims brought by other cannabis companies still tangled in related litigation, and it left intact the existing court-imposed ban on new marijuana licenses. In other words, the licensing freeze holds.
What's striking here is how little the ruling actually resolves. One license remains available. At least five companies want it. The injunction preventing Menominee from issuing new permits is still in place. Puff's attorney Jennifer Green has said publicly that an appeal is coming. "We will not stop until our rights are vindicated," she told MLive. Councilman Michael DeDamos, for his part, appeared unbothered - he expects the city to prevail on appeal, too. The city manager and its legal team haven't said anything at all.
A New Lawsuit, a Different Target
Filed a day before Barglind's ruling, Puff's Oakland County complaint reframes the entire Menominee dispute as something beyond a municipal licensing squabble. The target is Lume Cannabis, operator of Michigan's largest marijuana retail chain and an existing license holder in Menominee. Both companies are headquartered in Troy.
The allegations are pointed. Puff claims Lume covertly funded a ballot committee called Defending Menominee, which put forth the November referendum capping licenses and effectively blocking Puff - which had received conditional approval and spent nearly $2 million on real estate and renovations - from opening. The legal theory rests on defamation and illegal business practices, and it charges Lume with violating the Michigan Campaign Finance Act by falsifying disclosure forms to conceal its involvement with the ballot committee.
The paper trail, at least the public portion of it, raises questions that haven't been answered. Kevin Blair, an attorney who represents Lume, also represented Defending Menominee. The ballot committee's treasurer was listed as an employee of a Lansing law firm whose representative told MLive he was "not at liberty" to identify the client. The committee's disclosed funding source is Grassroots Midwest, a consulting firm that hasn't responded to press inquiries. Lume, Blair, and Defending Menominee representatives have all declined to address the connection.
As of mid-April, the Michigan Attorney General's Office said it had no open investigations related to Menominee's marijuana market.
The Longer History Behind the Dispute
To understand why this is so tangled, it helps to know that Menominee has been litigating its marijuana market for years. Lume itself sued the city in 2021. A 2023 settlement uncapped licenses and gave certain businesses - including licensing guarantees - in exchange for those companies agreeing to cover the city's legal bills in future suits. That arrangement is not standard municipal practice. National Civic League President Doug Linkhart previously told MLive that such an indemnification deal raises legal and ethical questions and, in his words, "opens a can of worms for potential corruption and influence."
Puff had hoped that its Menominee lawsuit would produce discovery - subpoenas, depositions, access to internal communications - that might illuminate how licensing decisions were actually made. The judge's ruling ended that avenue. The Oakland County case, which Puff filed against a private company rather than the city, may allow discovery to proceed. That's almost certainly part of the calculation: if the information won't surface through Menominee Circuit Court, try Oakland County.
Two city council members have previously been reported as connected - directly or through relatives - to marijuana real estate transactions in the city. A recall effort targeting one of them fell short of the required signatures. The AG's office received two investigation requests from a single council member last year; neither resulted in formal action. The county prosecutor says he's received no complaints. The thing is, none of these threads has been definitively tied to anything - but none has been fully examined either, which is precisely what Puff's legal strategy appears designed to change.
What Comes Next
The immediate path forward for Menominee's marijuana licensing remains blocked until the courts - plural, now - work through the remaining claims. The one available license sits in suspended animation. Other cannabis companies with claims still in the Menominee litigation haven't had their cases resolved. Puff's appeal of Barglind's ruling hasn't been filed yet, only promised.
The Oakland County lawsuit introduces a separate and potentially messier proceeding. Campaign finance violations, if substantiated, would carry their own legal consequences distinct from anything a municipal judge can decide. Discovery in that case could surface communications between Lume, Blair, and the ballot committee that would either support or undercut Puff's version of events.
For a city of roughly 8,000 people on the Wisconsin border, Menominee has generated an unusual volume of cannabis litigation - a function of geography, a contested licensing environment, and apparently a lot of money chasing a limited number of retail permits. Whether this resolves through a decisive appellate ruling or through discovery-driven pressure in Oakland County remains genuinely unclear. What isn't unclear: the lawyers aren't leaving.
