Robbery, repairs, and rent

I own a very small business in California. Two months ago my business was burglarized. The thieves came through a hole the created in the room of our building. I spoke with my landlord (landlord is the building owner) the day after the burglary and explained to him that the whole in the roof needed to be fixed. He did not act / repair the Roof. One week later my company was robbed again (the thieves used the same entry point I asked the landlord to repair). He finally fixed the whole. During this time our air conditioner started going out (the week of the 2nd robbery). My landlord stated that as soon as I paid the rent he would fix or replace the air conditioner. At this point he has still not repaired the air conditioner. We had a pretty bad heat wave in our city the last couple of months. The air conditioner went completely out at the beginning of September. We were forced to close the business on several days because of the heat in the building, other day we lost a lot of customers because of the heat in the building. Its know October, we lost a lot of money because of our landlord in the last couple of months. He is now asking for the rent for October. We are not currently under any lease with the landlord (as of January this year the lease has been up). But because of the nature of our business it is very hard to find a shop front that has the proper "coding" for our business.
I have tried to explain to him that we do not have the rent this month because of the air conditioner issue (I did not mention the robbery problem).
Do I as a renter have any rights in this situation? Thank you all in advance for reading my ramble and for any advice that you can give.

Since we don't know what type of lease you are on right now, we can only speculate that it is mont to month, however, that doesn't exempt you from your right to address the issues, in writing, with your landlord. Check the commercial landlord/tenant laws in your state to see what remedies you have, but not paying the rent will not help your case if you end up being taken by your landlord to court. Good luck!

Lease to month since

We are currently under no lease. Our Lease was up in January 08. We have been month to month since that point.
Reason behind no lease:
Our Landlord had gave us his word (a verbal contract in front of witnesses) that we were going too also be able to rent the adjacent building that he owned. On March 1st of 08. So we were going to sign both leases at the same time. He then decided to rent to another company for $300 more a month without notifying us. I know that verbal contracts do not hold much water. So I really have not thought about it since. .....Back on track because of this we are on a Month to Month basis. In California.
I remember the first time I met this man. He and his entire family claimed "He was a man of his word" all I can say is he has yet to keep his word about anything in 2 years. I think I will reconsider doing any business with anyone who talks about "His Word".

It looks like (if we have a case) we will be taking him to court. We are trying to pay his rent this month but it is going to be nowhere near on time (we just do not have it because of him).

Then proceed as instructed by your state landlord/tenant laws and request repair of the air conditioning unit. Follow the link below on how to proceed with the request. Hope this helps!

http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/landlordbook/resolve-problems.shtml