DC Padlocked Green Cloud, Then Licensed the Same Owner

ABCA and MPD padlocked Green Cloud Shop on Kennedy Street NW on September 13, 2024. It was the second unlicensed cannabis retailer closed under civil powers that took effect in July.

Owner Abdelhak Hamsasse, then 49, was arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute and with operating a business after a certificate of authority had been revoked. The padlock did not close the file. He later opened a licensed medical shop on Georgia Avenue, and on May 13, 2026, he was back before the same board over mushrooms, skipped ID checks, and sales missing from the tracking system.

The Second Shop ABCA Padlocked

Green Cloud sat at 706 Kennedy Street NW. Supervisory Investigator Jason Peru first walked in on May 16, 2024, with other District agencies, and the shop got a warning letter for illegal cannabis sales. The landlord on paper was 706 SK, LLC. Hamsasse and Khlad Bouchane were named with the shop.

Peru came back on July 2 and found THC products still on the shelves, set out like a retail case. One photo showed goods marked as of June 25, 2024, including a product called Red Bulls listed at 25% THC. Other packs copied candy bars, sold as MilkyWeed and 3 Marijuanas. ABCA had no license, permit, or endorsement on file that would have let the shop sell cannabis at all.

The Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Board issued a July 10 cease and desist order (Order 2024-483, Case 24-ULC-00005). It told Green Cloud, Hamsasse, Bouchane, and the landlord to stop every commercial cannabis deal on the spot. The board said untested product can carry pesticides or other drugs, and that an unlicensed counter can sell to minors.

ABCA said the shop kept selling anyway. On September 13, enforcement and MPD served a closure order, padlocked the doors, and called the place a credible and imminent danger to public health and safety. Officers saw illegal products in plain view. A search warrant followed. MPD took THC packages, a bowl of a green weed-like substance, several marijuana plants, and a bag of powder that gave a preliminary positive field test for opium.

It was the second lockup under emergency powers that took effect July 15, 2024. Supreme Terpene, at 1344 U Street NW, had been shut about a week earlier, with two women arrested. As of that Friday, ABCA said it had sent 23 cease and desist orders and 79 written warnings to unlicensed shops that never filed in the medical application window.

THE KENNEDY STREET FILE

1. April 2021: Hamsasse later told the board he opened at 706 Kennedy Street under Initiative 71 gifting rules.
2. May 16, 2024: Peru inspects, finds illegal cannabis activity, and a warning letter goes out.
3. July 2, 2024: A follow-up finds THC still on the shelves, including candy-shaped packs and Red Bulls marked 25% THC.
4. July 10, 2024: The board orders a cease and desist.
5. September 13, 2024: ABCA and MPD padlock the shop and arrest Hamsasse.
6. November 14, 2024: Hamsasse signs an offer in compromise to stop unlicensed sales and leave the lease.
7. November 20, 2024: The board approves that deal as Order 2024-875 and lets the summary closure lift once the terms are met, including proof within seven days that the shop had vacated 706 Kennedy Street.

Hamsasse later said the Kennedy Street loss cost him the lease, equipment, and $7,000 in fees. The building could reopen for other uses. Cannabis retail there was over.

July Powers Let the Board Skip a Hearing

For years after Initiative 71 passed in 2014, DC adults could possess cannabis and give small amounts away, but they could not run a legal store. Gifting shops filled the gap, bundling flower with stickers, shirts, or “advice.” Congress’s Harris Rider, renewed in appropriations bills since 2015, still blocks the District from spending money to tax or run adult-use retail. Maryland built that market. DC did not.

The Council’s answer was to pull those shops into the medical program or shut them. Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen’s enforcement bills, on emergency in January 2024 and made permanent in October, gave ABCA alcohol-style tools: warnings, fines, cease and desist orders, inspections of books, and seizures. Landlords could face a $10,000 civil fine. Signs that billed a shop as “I-71 compliant” were barred.

The temporary statute that followed, D.C. Law 25-216, spelled out when the board could padlock an unlicensed shop without a hearing. Green Cloud’s September lock fit the ignored-order path. The owner then had five business days to ask for a hearing, and the board had five business days to hold it and five more to issue a written decision.

WHEN THE BOARD MAY PADLOCK

• Under-21 sales: Distributing cannabis to a person under 21 counts as imminent danger.
• Untested goods: Selling product that a licensed lab has not tested counts once a testing lab is licensed.
• Ignored orders: Failing to obey a cease and desist is enough on its own.
• Schedule I drugs: Distributing Schedule I substances, or goods that contain them, is on the list.
• Weapons or violence: Unlawful firearms on site, or a dangerous crime or crime of violence there, also qualify.

Shops that had filed in the open application window got a grace period through September 30, 2024, or 180 days after board approval, whichever came later. Green Cloud, on ABCA’s account, had not filed. The warning and the July 10 order were the last off-ramps before the lock.

100 Padlocks Later, Untested Product Still Turns Up

Sixteen months after Green Cloud, Mayor Muriel Bowser, ABCA, and MPD announced the 100th illegal cannabis business closure. The 100th lock, on January 1, 2026, was not a storefront. It was a private residence on B Street SE. Officers took 20 pounds of marijuana and 600 grams of THC wax, plus a 9mm rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, and 114 rounds of ammunition. Three people were arrested.

Bowser said eligible people should buy and sell in the legal medical market. ABCA Director Fred Moosally said the agency was trying to give patients a legal product line and give licensed shops a chance to last. Interim Police Chief Jeffery W. Carroll pointed to guns: the task force had recovered 12 firearms in the first 100 closures.

Allen stood with them on H Street NE, a corridor that had drawn a heavy share of gray-market shops. His office said 16 of those first 100 shops were in Ward 6, and that the 100th event also closed You Gro Girl at that location for a second time.

These shops aren’t ‘businesses’ in any sense of the word. They’re largely cash operations selling totally untested cannabis grown outside the District, sometimes laced with other deadly drugs, and it’s not uncommon to also find weapons on the premises.

Charles Allen, Ward 6 councilmember, H Street NE, January 8, 2026

Before the padlocks, ABCA said it had walked owners through the medical license path. More than 90 businesses took it. The rest met the task force, a mix of ABCA, MPD, DC Health, and, when the site called for it, Buildings, Licensing and Consumer Protection, and Fire and EMS.

TASK FORCE HAUL THROUGH THE 100TH CLOSURE

Those figures are a running total through January 8, 2026, not the contents of any one shop. Green Cloud’s 2024 warrant was smaller and uglier in a different way: plants, loose flower, THC packs, and that opium field test. The fungi line on the citywide ledger is the through-line to what Peru later said he bought on Georgia Avenue.

Hamsasse Came Back With a Medical License

By spring 2026 the name on the door had a license behind it. Zidooni, LLC, trading as Green Cloud Dispensary, held a medical cannabis retailer license at 6124 Georgia Avenue NW, in ANC 4A. Hamsasse told Chairperson Donovan W. Anderson he had held that spot for a year and a half, paying rent, power, and water while he waited. He said he had spent two years on paperwork.

Two years, two years, two years waiting for this license. Two years, two years I’ve been filling out applications, 8,000 dollars for the applications, 2,000 dollars for the fees.

Abdelhak Hamsasse, owner, ABC Board summary action hearing, May 13, 2026

Anderson reminded him the board had already granted a license to sell medical cannabis, and that a buyer in that channel has to show a DC medical card. Hamsasse said customers refused to show ID, that undercover officers handed him a phone instead, and that he felt singled out. He said he had been arrested for seven days, that Peru had locked his Kennedy Street shop as the second closure, and that “after me, there were like seven shops” where nobody was arrested. City totals later showed 56 arrests through the 100th closure, so that first-wave claim does not match the later tally.

The shop’s own account was still selling the new address in public. On April 23, 2026, it welcomed customers to 6124 Georgia Ave NW and listed flower, edibles, vapes, and pre-rolls. The handle still pointed back to the old 706 Kennedy identity.

Welcome to Green Cloud, the ultimate oasis for cannabis aficionados at 6124 Georgia Ave NW in Washington, D.C.! Dive into a treasure trove of medical cannabis goodies, from classic marijuana and tantalizing infused edibles to smooth THC vapes and perfectly rolled pre-rolls. pic.twitter.com/FrMxNy5SOo

— Green Cloud Shop DC (@greencloud_dc) April 23, 2026

Five days later, Peru’s undercover walk-in started the case that brought Hamsasse back to the board.

What Investigators Bought for $30

Assistant Attorney General Shani Brown told the board the May 13 matter was a summary revocation hearing. She said Green Cloud Dispensary’s operations presented an imminent danger to health and safety and violated the District’s Controlled Substances Act. The remedy she asked for was summary revocation of the medical cannabis license.

Peru said a complaint had come in that the shop let people buy without a medical card and offered non-medical product, including mushrooms. On April 28, an ABCA undercover entered, was not asked for a patient card, and bought a pre-rolled cannabis cigarette and mushroom gummies from Hamsasse for $30. Peru said the goods did not come from a DC cultivator or manufacturer.

MPD’s Narcotic Enforcement Unit ran a second buy on April 30, Investigator Travor Roberson’s unit on the warrant. Peru said the story was almost the same: no card required, cannabis and mushroom product again. He checked with an ABCA program analyst. Neither day’s sales were in Metrc, the seed-to-sale system licensed shops are supposed to use. On the closure day he tested product that came back positive for psilocybin.

Hamsasse denied a clean undercover narrative. He said officers asked for mushrooms, that he used mushrooms himself because of mental health trouble, and that his video would show he had not sold mushroom gummies. Brown told the board his account jumped: he did not need the license, then he wanted another chance, then he had sold mushrooms, then the case report was wrong.

Anderson put the legal line in plain words. Mushrooms are a Schedule I product, he said, and “you cannot legally purchase mushrooms in a medical cannabis facility.” After the evidence, the four members present, Anderson, Silas Grant Jr., Ryan Jones, and David Meadows, voted to close the session and deliberate. The public transcript of that afternoon does not record what they did with the license once the doors were shut.

A Patient Card Is the Only Legal Storefront Path

DC still has no licensed adult-use counter. The legal storefront path is the medical program ABCA runs: retailers, internet retailers, cultivation centers, manufacturers, couriers, and testing labs. Residents 21 and older can self-certify as patients without a doctor’s note, which pulls ordinary adult demand into that channel. Purchases are supposed to be limited to registered patients and caregivers, logged in Metrc, and sourced from licensed DC growers and makers.

That is the bargain the conversion window offered gifting shops. Take a medical license, check the card, sell tested product, or lose the door. More than 90 operators took the first path. Green Cloud took the second path in 2024, then the first path in 2026, and still drew a complaint that the card was optional and the menu included fungi the medical program does not sell.

Adults who want a legal counter can use the District’s free online patient registration form and shop a licensed retailer. ABCA also takes anonymous complaints on shops that look unlicensed. The Harris Rider is unchanged, so the Council cannot stand up a taxed adult-use market on its own. Until Congress moves, the padlock and the patient card remain the two tools DC actually has.

Hamsasse’s two addresses are the short version of that bind. Kennedy Street was locked because a warning and a cease and desist did not stop sales. Georgia Avenue was licensed, then pulled into a summary file because, on the government’s evidence, the licensed counter still sold what an unlicensed one had sold: unlabeled cannabis, no card, and mushrooms. The board went into closed session to decide what that was worth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can Adults Buy Cannabis in a DC Store Without a Medical Card?

Not from a licensed retailer. Initiative 71 lets adults 21 and older possess up to 2 ounces and give up to 1 ounce, but it does not legalize store sales. Licensed shops may sell only to registered patients and caregivers. Residents 21 and older can self-certify into the medical program with no physician letter; non-residents can register too, and those sales are supposed to run through an ABCA-licensed retailer, internet retailer, or courier.

Why Doesn’t DC Have Licensed Recreational Dispensaries?

A federal budget provision known as the Harris Rider, named for Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, has been attached to appropriations bills since 2015. It bars the District from spending money to tax or regulate commercial adult-use sales, even though Maryland now runs that market. The DC Council cannot open adult-use shops unless Congress drops the rider.

How Fast Can ABCA Padlock an Unlicensed Shop?

If the board finds imminent danger, including an ignored cease and desist, it can order a summary closure and have ABCA or MPD lock the doors without a hearing first. The owner then has 5 business days after service to request a hearing. A timely request requires a hearing within 5 business days, and a written decision within 5 business days after that hearing.

What Did the July 2024 Order Say Green Cloud Had on the Shelves?

Peru’s July 2 photos showed cannabis strains displayed as of June 25, 2024, a Red Bulls item marked 25% THC, and packs made to look like Milky Way and 3 Musketeers bars under the names MilkyWeed and 3 Marijuanas. The board found no sign those goods met medical manufacturing, testing, labeling, or packaging rules, and no license authorizing commercial cannabis at 706 Kennedy Street.

How Do DC Residents Register as Medical Cannabis Patients?

Residents 21 and older enroll through the District’s free self-certification form, with no doctor’s recommendation. Caregivers have a separate track. Once registered, patients buy from licensed retailers whose hours are set in the retailer rules, including a 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. operating window, and those sales are supposed to be entered in Metrc so the product can be traced to a licensed cultivator or manufacturer.

On May 13 the government asked the board to take the Georgia Avenue license the same way it had taken the Kennedy Street keys. Four members voted to deliberate in private. What they did with that license after the cameras went off is not in the public transcript of that afternoon.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on District enforcement actions, board orders, and hearing testimony. It is informational only and is not legal advice, medical advice, or a guide to buying, selling, or possessing cannabis. Readers who need advice on licensing, criminal charges, or medical cannabis use should consult a District-licensed attorney and, for health questions, a qualified clinician. Figures, charges, and license statuses reflect the cited agency records and may change as cases move.