![]() McCurdy called an Arizona Department of Health Services representative, who said following their supervisors’ instructions would be in violation of state law.Īs a result, Keith and McCurdy both left their jobs, claiming a hostile work environment. Both employees pushed back, fearing legal repercussions. The issues came to a head for both Keith and McCurdy when Harvest acquired four dispensary licenses under the name Arizona Natural Selections in February 2020, their lawsuits claim.Īccording to the complaints, McCurdy and Keith were asked to do inventory work in a newly acquired dispensary using visitor badges instead of the proper dispensary agent credentials. Her complaint echoed many of McCurdy’s allegations, including improper inventory labeling and flagrant disregard for the rules by managers. McCurdy’s direct supervisor, former Retail Standard Operating Procedures Manager Trina Keith, filed the second lawsuit against Harvest. “How do I report a compliance issue to someone who’s watching a compliance violation occur and not doing anything about it?” McCurdy told New Times. The manager in charge of compliance allegedly watched, but didn’t intervene. On one occasion, during a company “Grillin n’ Chillin” event in August 2019, an employee McCurdy believed did not have a medical marijuana patient card consumed chocolate chips containing THC, McCurdy said. One supervisor repeatedly made fun of McCurdy for raising issues, calling her a “Compliance Nazi,” the lawsuit claims. McCurdy says she told her supervisors about her concerns but many of the issues were never resolved. Arizona medical marijuana law requires cannabis products to be stored in secure locations with access by authorized personnel only. The other was on the sales floor above the cashier stations. One stockpile was inside the ceiling of a bathroom open to both employees and patients, McCurdy said. ![]() These included products allegedly containing THC being sold to nonpatients on a cart in the lobby, and cannabis vape cartridges stashed in the ceiling. In July 2019, McCurdy was asked to help out in Harvest’s tiny Glendale store, where she claims she discovered several major violations. “But obviously, I had major concerns - less about the money coming in and more about the massive compliance issues that I saw happening.” “There were all of these workarounds that the locations had developed to keep operations going and to keep the money coming in,” McCurdy told New Times. “Rainbow shake” cannabis being labeled with “static batch numbers” instead of more specific identification numbers. A manager keeping marijuana in her office at Harvest’s Tucson branch, instead of in a secure location. Steve White When she was hired at Harvest as a new store opener and trainer in May 2019, she was excited to work for a larger, multistate dispensary company with a sterling reputation.īut when she started going into stores, McCurdy’s lawsuit claims, she started finding problems. Eventually, LAPD came in and raided the establishment.” “Our owners did not inform us about this. “Our owners were apparently in a dispute with LAPD about being several inches too close to a library,” she said. ![]() McCurdy, a nine-year veteran of the marijuana industry across California, Nevada, Oregon, and Arizona, said she was sensitive about compliance issues because she was involved in a raid at a dispensary in Los Angeles in 2014 that resulted in her arrest. “But once I started getting in further and further within the organization, I just realized that a lot of it is smoke and mirrors,” she told New Times. One of the former staffers, 29-year-old Mollie McCurdy, said a Harvest representative who interviewed her for the job claimed compliance was her top priority. Harvest has not formally responded to the allegations yet, but CEO Steve White told Phoenix New Times, “Of course they will be denied.” ![]() The ex-employees are demanding compensatory, punitive, and special damages in amounts to be determined at a jury trial. The lawsuits filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on April 23 allege that Harvest staff improperly labeled marijuana products, sold THC-labeled products to nonpatients in a dispensary lobby, and stored marijuana products in a dispensary ceiling, among other violations of the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act.īoth former staffers say they repeatedly sounded the alarm about illegal practices at Harvest dispensaries, only to be ignored and rebuffed by managers. Two former employees of the multistate dispensary operator Harvest Health and Recreation are suing the company, accusing it of engaging in a slew of compliance violations and asking them to break Arizona law. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |