SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- A property company that owned two warehouses in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood is facing a lawsuit from the city that alleges it aided and abetted tenants in illegally cultivating cannabis plants and evading taxes. City Attorney David Chiu announced Thursday that a lawsuit was filed against P.A.A. Property, LLC and its manager and president, David Chi-Yu Lai. In 2023, the California Department of Cannabis Control (DCC) seized 4,485 mature cannabis plants, 1,332 immature cannabis plants and nearly 300 pounds of cannabis shake from two warehouses owned by P.A.A. Property, located at 1355 Fitzgerald Avenue and 1510 Wallace Avenue, according to the city attorney’s office. California-restricted fungicide was also seized in the search, and a number of violations were issued for fire, building and planning code infractions. SF Superior Court clerks on strike Thursday over contract Lai was seen on surveillance photographs entering one of the warehouses and, therefore, knowingly allowed tenants to “engage in unpermitted and unlawful cannabis cultivation,” Chiu said. Lai admitted to knowing about the illegal grow operations once confronted with the photographic evidence, according to the city attorney’s office. Lai joins five other defendants in the suit who are named as Doe 1 through Doe 5. The city does not know the true names and capacities of the Doe defendants as of the filing. The complaint filed at San Francisco Superior Court alleged that the property company and its president violated unfair competition law, profited from leasing the warehouses used for illegal cannabis cultivation and endangered neighboring residents by violating safety codes. “With thousands of illegal plants seized, the scale of this operation harms all the legitimate cannabis businesses,” said Chiu in a statement. “These property owners assisted their tenants in breaking the rules to make a profit. These illegal grow houses were rife with building code violations and fire safety issues, demonstrating why our cannabis regulatory system is so important.”