MedMen Enterprises has laid off most of its employees at Nevada's best-performing marijuana dispensary, former employees told MJBizDaily.
The Los Angeles-based multistate operator on Feb. 6 cut 20 to 25 employees at its store at 4503 Paradise Road, just off the Las Vegas Strip, according to people familiar with the matter.
The cancellation was announced just days before Super Bowl III was to be held at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, drawing tens of thousands of tourists and visitors to the city and its cannabis stores.
The weeks leading up to the Big Game in Las Vegas are likely to be the busiest time of the year for cannabis retailers in the region, with forecasts from New York-based cannabis wholesale platform LeafLink predicting that unofficial cannabis It will even surpass the holiday date of April 20th.
Despite an expected increase in sales, MedMen shelves at the Paradise Road store are nearly empty after product shipments stopped in December, former operational staff affected by the layoffs told MJBizDaily told.
“The situation really deteriorated,'' said the source, who worked there for three years.
“There was basically no product.”
A quick check of the store's website on Tuesday showed there were only two flower products for sale, each weighing 14 grams.
Sources told MJBizDaily that a Wild sales representative told staff at the Paradise Road store in January that the Oregon-based edibles brand owed MedMen too much and would not ship more products. He said it had stopped.
MedMen did not respond to MJBizDaily's request for comment.
These new insights are consistent with recent developments regarding the MedMen saga and its outstanding debt.
MJBizDaily last week detailed the company's extensive business practices of unpaid invoices, sudden store closures and firing employees without notice.
This coincided with the recent closure of three MedMen stores in California, recent corporate and store layoffs, and management restructuring.
Two MedMen stores in Nevada are part of a pending asset sale to privately held MSO Mint Cannabis.
Arizona-based Mint did not immediately respond to MJBizDaily's inquiries about the status of the proposed transaction.
Chris Casacchia can be reached at chris.casacchia@mjbizdaily.com.
