The woman who owns the operation who claims to be California's... (Associated Press) 
 
 LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who owns a business that claims to be California's largest landlord of marijuana businesses sued the city of San Bernardino to overturn its pot regulation ordinance that could bar her from the industry.  PACIFIC PALISADES (CBSLA) — Stephanie Smith, who describes herself as a real estate developer educated at Boston College and UCLA, made news in December, when police accused her of running a multimillion-dollar marijuana grow operation in San Bernardino. In January, she said she was just the owner of the properties, insisting her tenants' activities were legal under California law. Stephanie Smith, the owner of a business called Bubba Likes Tortillas, said in the lawsuit filed Friday in San Bernardino County Superior Court that the city's new law could create monopolies and also prevent her from renting property to pot growers and other marijuana operations.  LOS ANGELES -- Police in Southern California raided a weed "fortress" on Wednesday, seizing 35,000 marijuana plants and shutting down an operation they believe was bringing in millions of dollars a month. Smith was not involved with pot growing and she was not arrested or charged, her attorney Ben Eilenberg said. After the raids, a judge invalidated a voter-approved measure to regulate marijuana operations and San Bernardino City Council passed its own measure to replace it earlier this month. Smith posted security camera photos online from that day and wrote, “Raiding a woman and toddlers with SWAT in full gear and guns is absurd.” 
 
 Smith declined an interview but through a statement from her attorney she says she’s “a well-known and recognized leader in large-scale cannabis real estate development.” 
 
 She insists she just owns the buildings saying: “The tenants in my buildings were compliant with the laws of the State of California and had applied for licenses from the City of San Bernardino multiple times. San Bernardino Police Dept./CBS News 
 
 The new rules said anyone - from a permit applicant or an employee of a cannabis business to the owner of a property - could be barred from the commercial cannabis business in the city if they had violated local or state laws related to the industry or if they had failed to report income from it. They do “not require a conviction, administrative hearing, or any other process other than that the City of San Bernardino has determined that the actions occurred.” 
 
 “This misguided ordinance is a backdoor ban that continues the City’s illogical campaign against a legal product,” Smith said in a statement. Stephanie Smith, owner of Bubba Likes Tortillas, claims the ordinance creates a monopoly for certain cannabis license types and bans “any person who has ever had anything to do with cannabis … from entering the legal market.” 
 
 City Attorney Gary Saenz said by phone Monday, March 26, his office had received the lawsuit earlier in the day and hadn’t had time to review it and offer a comment. Eilenberg said it could also apply to businesses that operated in the murky days when medical marijuana was loosely regulated. The lawsuit said the ordinance would violate the constitutional right to due process by disqualifying tenants or Smith without ever granting them an administrative or criminal hearing. The ordinance – one of three passed earlier this month – says the city can award only 17 cannabis business licenses in this first year; with 19 different cannabis license types available under California law, certain businesses can hold a monopoly on the marketplace, the suit says. Smith did not have a permit to grow in the city, authorities said.
– A Los Angeles mom accused of running a multimillion-dollar marijuana grow operation in San Bernardino is now suing the city to overturn its pot regulation ordinance, the AP reports. Stephanie Smith, a 43-year-old real estate developer and mother of five, owns three buildings in San Bernardino that were raided by police in December. Thousands of marijuana plants were confiscated, CBS Los Angeles reported at the time. Smith was not arrested or charged, but police accused her of being in charge of the pot "fortress"; she said she was simply the landlord and that her tenants' activities were legal. In her lawsuit, she argues San Bernardino's ordinance "is a backdoor ban that continues the city's illogical campaign against a legal product," CBS reports. California legalized recreational marijuana last year, but sales did not begin until Jan. 1, CBS reported at the time. Smith, who says she is the biggest landlord of marijuana businesses in the state, argues that under the San Bernardino ordinance—which was passed by the city council after Smith's buildings were raided—"any person who has ever had anything to do with cannabis is banned for life from entering the legal market," per the San Bernardino Sun. That's because Smith says her tenants were in the process of being licensed when they were raided, and got approval to operate a week after authorities shut them down, but the ordinance bars anyone who has violated local or state laws related to the cannabis industry from ever entering the commercial cannabis business in the city. "San Bernardino is ... guaranteeing that anyone in the city who operated prior to this law has to remain in the black market," her attorney says. Smith says that could result in monopolies forming in the cannabis industry, and could also prevent her from renting to those in the industry.