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Douglas Stewart has spent the last 15 years making his space at the Oakland Cannery into a home with artwork on every free space of the walls and vinyl records covering the tabletops.
Stewart is a man of many titles, including teacher, activist, advocate and above all, artist. He’s worked in arts preservation, poetry and has helped in juvenile justice centers and prisons to support vulnerable communities dealing with mental health and wellness issues.
The Oakland Cannery is more than a residence for Stewart and its other tenants, it’s also their workspace. However, after 47 years, the residents have been issued a 120-day eviction notice.
Problems at the Cannery began in 2016 when Green Sage, a Colorado-based cannabis cultivation company, acquired the property at 5733 San Leandro St. Their plan was to use this and other similar sites in the area for large-scale cannabis production.
“Unfortunately, however you want to look at it, Green Sage took over as landlords right around the time that the licenses and the Oakland Cannery got deemed as a ‘green zone’. And that’s when they started kicking out the commercial tenants below us and really started activating the space for cannabis operators and operations,” Stewart said.
Stewart and Alistair Monroe, son of the late painter Arthur Monroe who is responsible for the Cannery’s transformation into Oakland’s first live-work residence, claim their homes became unlivable due to the property owners’ neglect.
Both told stories of poor plumbing, electrical problems, lack of security and maintenance workers entering their homes unannounced. Despite numerous complaints and maintenance, requests, the property owners failed to address the problems.
“They had a lawless mentality to say that we were not residential use, we were commercial use, and we had to do as they say,” Monroe said.
Stewart supports safe cannabis cultivation and equal market opportunities. He is critical of Green Sage for saturating the market and hindering local business growth in Oakland.
Holding a micro-license for distribution and sales, Stewart benefits from an equity program that aids Oakland residents impacted by the War on Drugs with permits, grants and interest-free loans.
Stewart tried to use the Cannery’s commercial space for his license but was denied by the property owners. His efforts to rent other city spaces also ended in eviction.
“I can’t really afford to find a new place for my business license to hang up after being displaced by my last business operations location and then also having to try to juggle and figure out where I’m gonna be laying my head within the next three months after the Ellis Act eviction,” Stewart said.
Three years into their ownership, Green Sage defaulted on a $55 million loan from a Canadian private commercial mortgage lender, Romspen. The managers of Green Sage have since disappeared.
In September, Ellis Act evictions were served to residents of the Oakland Cannery enabling the landlords to take their properties off the market and remove all tenants.
According to Wikipedia, the Ellis Act is a 1985 California state law that allows landlords to evict residential tenants to “go out of the rental business” in spite of desires by local governments to compel them to continue providing rental housing.
Mark Mersel, an attorney who represents Romspen, states that after Green Sage defaulted on their loan, the mortgage company had to foreclose on the property.
He stated that many, if not all, of the current tenants at the Oakland Cannery had not paid rent or did not have valid leases with the property, and that they are all “basically squatters.”
“All Romspen is trying to do is get this property to operate, not be a blight on the neighborhood, and operate it for its industrial intended purpose,” Mersel said.
Monroe suspects the evictions were retaliation for lawsuits and complaints about unlivable conditions in the building and says he saw this coming from a mile away.
“The first day the landlords were on site they just openly said ‘we’re going to be removing you guys,’” Monroe said.
Eddie Ytuarte from the Oakland Tenants Union asserts that under the Ellis Act, unless the tenants were given relocation payments at the time of the notice, the eviction is invalid.
“A lot of things that landlords refuse to do are actual code violations,” Ytuarte stated. “For instance, if the plumbing is no good, or if the heat is insufficient, it’s breaking city codes and if the tenants are under rent control, they could petition for lower rents or they could sue in small claims court.”
Neither Stewart nor Monroe received relocation payments, only copies of checks via email.
Ytuarte suggested that tenants looking to fight eviction should seek pro-bono legal services or find an attorney who will take on the case for a much lower rate.
Monroe said that they tried those options, but to no avail. In other efforts, he and Stewart have hosted events to bring in city officials, like Mayor Sheng Thao and almost every Oakland City Council member to plead their case and find support from their resources.
A City of Oakland’s public information officer (PIO) wrote in an email to the Post that they have attempted to connect local developers who want to preserve the live-work space to the property owner, but the property owner has not shown any interest.
“The City has been working to protect the Oakland Cannery and other live/work communities from displacement pressure due to cannabis for many years. In 2018, the City adopted legislation prohibiting any type of cannabis business in live/work spaces. Then in 2023 it went further, prohibiting cannabis cultivation on any part of a property that contains work/live spaces,” said the PIO.
“Unfortunately, no local protections can prevent landlords from filing an eviction under the Ellis Act, as that is California State law,” the PIO concluded.
Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, who represents District 6 where The Cannery is located, stated that beyond moral support, there’s not much else that his office can do to help the residents.
“I think displacement has been a big issue in the last 15 to 20 years. We are losing a large share of our African American population from Oakland. A lot of them are being displaced and being forced to move outside of the county and outside the state,” Jenkins said.
Monroe and Stewart stopped paying rent in response to the mistreatment of Green Sage and the COVID-19 pandemic. The eviction moratorium protected tenants from eviction due to unpaid rent during the pandemic.
City ordinance states that in order for a property owner to terminate residency, they have to provide a good or just cause. The Ellis Act is considered a just cause.
Ultimately, it’s not about the buyout price for Monroe or Stewart. They want The Cannery to remain an affordable live-work space for artists.
“It’s more than just having a place to lay my head. It’s a place of advocacy. It’s a place for art to be preserved. For a culture to be preserved and for a community to be lifted,” Stewart said.
