Harvest Inc., a marijuana producer in Pennsylvania, is under investigation by the Ohio Department of Commerce.
The DoC has placed all of Harvest’s dispensary licenses on hold, according to a Cincinnati Enquirer report.
According to the report, officials say that Harvest intentionally misled regulators when it claimed its Ohio operations were owned and controlled by an African American woman.
The company stated that Harvest Grows LLC was majority-owned by a member of an “economically disadvantaged group,” Harvest scored higher than other applicants and was awarded one of 12 potentially lucrative licences to grow cannabis.
Ohio notified Harvest that it planned to revoke its large-scale cultivation licence in January.
Harvest also was cited by the state of Pennsylvania for not using minority or women-owned contractors to build dispensaries after it promised in its application to do so.
A Harvest spokesman said in an e-mail:
Harvest objects to the unfair characterization by the Ohio Department of Commerce (DoC) of both the nature and intent of our business relationship with Ms. Kirkpatrick. Harvest is committed to increasing diversity in ownership in our industry, and we know that access to capital can sometimes be a challenge.
We did not require a capital investment from Ms. Kirkpatrick for our agreement, but rather relied on her expertise and sweat equity as a significant initial financial contribution would have prevented Ms. Kirkpatrick from having a meaningful position with the company.
Ms. Kirkpatrick is an important contributor to our company and continues to remain the majority owner of Harvest Grows. We’ve worked closely with the Department of Commerce to modify our agreements to more accurately reflect Ms. Kirkpatrick’s ownership and control of Harvest Grows and expect to finalize an agreement with the DoC to resolve this issue in the coming weeks.
We look forward to Ms. Kirkpatrick leading our efforts to bring premium cannabis products to the patients of Ohio.
