Cannabis kingpin versus public integrity, SLO County judge to decide

January 3, 2022

SLO Mayor Heidi Harmon and Helios Dayspring

By KAREN VELIE

Natural Healing Center SLO filed a lawsuit against the city of San Luis Obispo in December alleging improper termination of its retail pot shop permit and asking the court to order the city to allow them to open.

Marijuana mogul Helios Dayspring transferred ownership of Natural Healing Center SLO into the name of his live-in girlfriend Valnette Garcia in Oct. 2020, before he pled guilty to tax fraud and bribery charges. Two months ago, city staff revoked the pot shop’s permit because Dayspring had not disclosed his criminal activity and had lied about owning the underlying property during the application process.

SLO City Council members, several of whom failed to report campaign donations from Dayspring, created a selection criteria in late 2018 for determining the winners of three lucrative cannabis retail permits, a benchmark that appeared to promote specific candidates. For example, the city provided extra points if a company had enough money to purchase their property while also handing out points for having a minority owner with financial difficulties.

To get extra points for SLO’s “property control” merit criteria, Dayspring claimed he fully owned 2640 Broad Street, the property associated with his pot shop application, according to court records. Partially based on the fabricated information in Dayspring’s Natural Healing Center SLO application, in March 2019, the city awarded Dayspring one of the three coveted pot shop permits.

It was more than two years later, on Sept. 21. 2021, that Dayspring purchased the property at 2640 Broad Street from Levi Seligman, Keith Sweeney and Christopher Wright, for $4.2 million, according to property records.

In the lawsuit, Garcia’s attorney John Armstrong asserts that the city cannot revoke the permit based on lies Dayspring made during the application process because Dayspring no longer has any interest in the business.

In what appears to be well over market value, and a possible avenue for Dayspring to benefit from the pot shop even though it is no longer in his name, Daypring rents 2640 Broad Street to his girlfriend’s business for $55,000 a month, or $660,000 a year. In addition, he required Garcia pay a $110,000 security deposit, according to the rental agreement.

“While also not a basis for the city’s current action against NHC, it is also relevant to note that Mr.Dayspring’s longstanding and continuing personal relationship with the new majority owner, Ms. Garcia, strains the credibility of statements that Mr. Dayspring has not had and will not have any affiliation with NHC from and after the date of the October 2020 transfer of his interests to Ms. Garcia,” according to an Oct. 16 letter from SLO City Manager Derek Johnson explaining the permit termination.

Armstrong also argues that Natural Healing Center SLO could face financial destruction if not permitted to open because of the monthly rent payments made to Dayspring.

“NHC has no available means of meeting this lease obligation without being able to operate with the permit and should NHC default on that obligation NHC anticipates that it will be liable for the landlord’s cost and expense of improving the premises, over of $4,000,000.00 [sic] which will result in the financial destruction of NHC,” according to the lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, Armstrong asks the court to order the city of San Luis Obispo to reinstate the pot shop permit, to declare the taking of the permit unlawful, to restrain the city from taking further action against the plaintiff and for attorney’s fees and court costs.


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NOW public corruption is wrong? Helios played by the de facto rules set up by the cities and the county, payoffs to public officials. And don’t think for a minute Christine Deitrick and Derek Johnson and their counterparts at other jurisdictions were not aware of what was happening.


Bookbottled below is correct on the inflated rent siphon funds/accounting scam. Is Helio’s girlfriend up to date on paying the rent with her own money (not loans from her boyfriend)? If there is no injunction from evicting her and she is behind on rent, why isn’t Helio evicting his girlfriend’s business per his lease with her? Or, is Helio paying her rent on paper, then claiming it as a wash on his income tax returns? Basically, my point is the IRS is going to add another IRS tax evasion charge to Helios on his money shuffling and creative accounting through his girlfriend. But then, what’s one more criminal charge when your headed to the pokey and soap-on-a-rope.


“In the lawsuit, Garcia’s attorney John Armstrong asserts that the city cannot revoke the permit based on lies Dayspring made during the application process because Dayspring no longer has any interest in the business.”


So the Holocaust never happened, because Hitler lost the war? It wasn’t the Japanese that attacked Pearl Harbor, because the US hadn’t declared war on Japan just yet? “She said she was 18!” is now a valid argument?

Mr. Armstrong? You already lost this court case LOL!


Every single cannabis license in SLO County has been issued, essentially, by Helios. City and County staff need a very through criminal investigation, hopefully now being conducted by the FBI.


And yet the city continues to drool over the anticipated tax revenue for legalized marijuana business. Perhaps because they already spent the yet to be received revenue and wont make budget cuts.


Perhaps the bean counters making the decisions are holding out for bigger cuts of the pie.


The new scam/fraud is charging rent at a multiple of market rate to his girlfriend to extract all the profits from the pot business and launder it into a real estate business so that it can be put back into the banking system. Helios is getting a 100% cap rate on his investment in this building….where else is that happening in SLO? Even if he financed the entire building and construction his monthly including taxes would be approx $30k….hes getting back $55k…and now it’s rent not profits from marijuana, so it’s taxed as passive income…sweet deal. And, since the marijuana business is paying out all of its profits in rent, it owes no tax.


It’s scam after scam after scam…it’s marijuana inception.


Based on the articles in Cal Coast News it’s well documented that Dayspring has been a cancer of society:(

I applaud the City of SLO for doing the right thing in trying to cut out this cancer!!!


There’s only one way to truly end this cancer. Yellowstone?


The City of San Luis Obispo, in concert with Helios, is the cancer. Harmon got cut out, but Johnson and Dietrich are still metastasizing.


Public integrity? That is laughable in 2022.


When considering addiction, drugs, the cost of government and lots of easy money, I’d be more concerned about my safety for having an opinion.


Let’s see who’s greasy paw is still out there.