The completion of an acquisition in Emeryville, CA, will help MedMen make strides in expansion in 2019. The closing on a dispensary license in Emeryville means MedMen will have one of the only two adult-use licenses for that area.
The dispensary is set to open in the commercial focal point of East Bay in 2019. The location will add to MedMen’s current dispensary listings, which include eight in Southern California. The business also operates a dispensary in Arizona, three in Nevada, and four in New York. Meanwhile, the company is in possession of licenses that will allow them to operate a total of 70 facilities in 12 states, including 11 in California, eight in New York and 30 in Florida, where they have yet to open a retail location.
The Los Angeles-based company is not only leading the industry in terms of assets and operations across the country but also is in the forefront of supporting progressive marijuana laws.
The company faces its share of trouble as well, however. MedMen is the defendant in a class action suit, filed in L.A. Superior Court on behalf of two former employees of the company’s West Hollywood cannabis dispensary. The lawsuit has the potential to add roughly 100 employees, both current and previous.
The retail location in West Hollywood is at 8208 Santa Monica Boulevard. The location holds a medical cannabis license and has been granted a temporary license to sell marijuana for recreational use, pending the allocation of the permanent recreational cannabis licenses, slated for Dec. 18, 2018.
The lawsuit, which was filed against MedMen subsidiaries Manlin I LLC and DT Fund II Group LLC, alleges the business violated several laws regarding employee work hours, payment, and breaks. These violations included requiring workers to work hours that qualified for overtime without being paid overtime wages, failing to give state-required breaks, and coming up short when it came to maintenance of accurate records for payroll purposes.
The lawsuit could result in payouts of fines per employee that total $50 for each first pay period where underpayment occurred and $100 for each additional pay period where the issues occurred.
This is not the first controversy facing MedMen. There is also an issue with tipping and California employees, as they contend that paychecks were deducted for tips that were paid to them via debit or credit card transactions, sometimes resulting in negative paychecks.
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