MADISON — Investigators were executing a search warrant Wednesday afternoon at the medical cannabis shop that a judge recently ordered to close because of its lack of licenses.

Detectives with the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office arrived in unmarked vehicles to Simple Twist Cannabis Co. at 97 Lakewood Road around 1:30 p.m.

Sheriff Dale Lancaster, who was part of the team executing the warrant, said he expected his investigators would be at the shop for several hours. Lancaster said he expected to provide more information later Wednesday, once detectives processed and documented the scene.

The execution of the search warrant came one week after town officials were successful in their effort in a separate, civil case to shut down the shop, which was found to lack both state and local licenses to sell medical cannabis.

Following a hearing in that case July 24 at the Skowhegan District Court, Judge Erika Bristol issued an order that Simple Twist Cannabis and its owner, Daniel Safranec, cease all distribution, sale and transfer of cannabis products until he obtains proper licenses from the state Office of Cannabis Policy and the town of Madison, court records show. Bristol, who said she was taking the matter under advisement, issued the ruling the same day as the hearing, according to court records.

Bristol also ordered Safranec and his company to pay the town’s legal fees of $2,932.09 and civil penalties totaling $29,100. The order had a provision that the civil penalties would be reduced to a total of $9,700 if Safranec complied with the cease and desist order within 48 hours, which he did not.

Bristol’s order matched what the town’s attorney, Kenneth Lexier of the Skowhegan law firm Mills, Shay, Lexier & Talbot, had submitted to the court to consider.

Minutes before Sheriff’s Office investigators arrived at the shop Wednesday, Safranec had just said in an interview that he had not yet seen the court order and was unaware Bristol issued it.

“I haven’t received anything from any judges,” Safranec told a Morning Sentinel reporter, who was unaware of law enforcement’s impending arrival. “She said she wasn’t going to issue anything right away. So, I don’t think she’s issued anything.”

Safranec does not hold a caregiver registry identification card from the Office of Cannabis Policy, Bristol found. And because he does not have a state license, the town has not issued him a license to operate the retail cannabis shop, as required by an ordinance voters enacted last year.

Appearing via videoconference at the hearing in court last week, Elisa Ellis, director of licensing at the Office of Cannabis Policy, testified the office denied Safranec’s caregiver license application May 30, and he presently has no license to sell medical cannabis. Caregiver registry identification cards are issued to individuals, not business entities, she said.

Safranec held a caregiver registry identification card that expired July 9, 2024, and he submitted an application for renewal the day prior, Ellis said. But the renewal application was never completed, and Safranec continued to operate without a license for several months before he applied again, she said.

In March, a sheriff’s deputy acting as a “secret shopper” was able to buy cannabis without a medical card and reported that to the Office of Cannabis Policy, Ellis said. Two days later, without knowing that happened, an inspector who was in the area conducted an inspection, initially not knowing Safranec lacked a caregiver registry identification card, and issued several violations.

The town, informed by state regulators of Safranec’s lack of caregiver registry identification card, then issued a notice of violation, which ultimately led to it taking Safranec to court with a land use citation and complaint.

Safranec said in court and in a previous interview that he did not understand why the Office of Cannabis Policy denied his application. He pointed to changes in the application process that required information he either could not or did not want to provide.

On Wednesday, before police arrived at his shop, Safranec said again he had issues with the state’s licensing process.

“I don’t understand how one person in the state of Maine has control over who can grow and who can’t in the state of Maine,” Safranec said, presumably of Ellis. “One person? Literally one person.”

In court, Safranec stood by a quotation in a July 20 Morning Sentinel story, in which he said he would continue to operate the shop unless law enforcement stopped him. “But then, after they leave, I’m going to unnail the door and open it back up,” he said in that previous interview, which Lexier, the town’s attorney, referenced in his questioning.

“Definitely. I told a federal judge that, too,” Safranec said in court.

In 2015, Safranec was sentenced to 12 months in prison for a federal marijuana manufacturing conviction in the Western District of New York.

Four detectives, one deputy and the sheriff were part of the search.

Outside the shop, one detective photographed the area and vehicles parked outside. He also brought two crates of equipment into the shop.

Safranec sat in a cruiser speaking with a detective for the first 40 minutes of the search. He was then led in and out of the store with detectives.

Another detective interviewed a Simple Twist Cannabis employee in his unmarked truck, before letting her go inside to collect her belongings and drive away.

During the search, multiple customers pulled into the store’s driveway, off busy U.S. Route 201 just over the Skowhegan town line. Some saw what was going on and left; investigators had to tell others they were executing a search warrant, so they had to leave.

The possibility of Safranec facing criminal charges had been floated before Wednesday. Madison Town Manager Denise Ducharme previously told the town’s select board that officials referred the case to the sheriff’s office, although Lancaster had declined to comment on whether his office was investigating until Wednesday’s search.

Ducharme told the select board of the court order in the town’s civil case at a meeting Monday night.

“We’re in a ‘wait-and-see’ pattern to see what happens and who moves next,” Ducharme said.