Columbia Care is closing Riverhead medical marijuana dispensary today, working to relocate – riverheadlocal.com
Now more than ever, local news matters.
Now more than ever, local news matters.
The Columbia Care medical marijuana dispensary is closing its doors on East Main Street in Riverhead today.
The company is not closing its dispensary permanently, according to the State Office of Cannabis Management, which licenses marijuana dispensaries
“The temporary closure of Columbia Care NY LLC’s Riverhead medical dispensary is due to the licensee being unable to stay at its current location,” an OCM spokesperson said in an email. The company is working to relocate, the spokesperson said. No additional information is available regarding a future location, according to the email.
Staff members and registered medical patients have been notified, OCM said in the email. Patients have been provided information about nearby medical dispensaries to ensure continued access during Columbia Care’s temporary closure, the email said.
A company spokesperson did not respond to an email sent yesterday seeking comment.
Columbia Care opened its Riverhead dispensary in January 2016. At the time, marijuana could only be sold legally in New York for limited medicinal purposes. New York legalized the possession and recreational use by adults, along with retail sales by licensed adult-use dispensaries and on-site consumption at licensed lounges, as well as at-home cultivation of a limited number of plants.
Columbia Care purchased a large greenhouse operation on Sound Avenue in April 2021, where it grows and processes marijuana plants.
In April 2022, Cresco Labs, a large cannabis company based in Chicago, announced it would acquire Columbia Care in a $2 billion deal. On July 30, 2023, Cresco Labs and Columbia Care announced they had mutually agreed to terminate the deal.
In September 2023, Columbia Care announced it had changed its legal name to the Cannabist Company Holdings and was rebranding itself as the Cannabist Company, a brand it launched in 2021 for retail stores it had begun opening across the country.
As of December 2023, Columbia Care had applied for status as a Registered Organization Dispensary, which allows it to co-locate adult use sales at its medical dispensary. It qualified to make that transition, according to a Cannabis Control Board resolution, but never began adult-use sales at its Riverhead medical dispensary.
In June 2024, the Cannabist Company announced a corporate restructuring that included divesting itself of its assets and license in Florida, preparing for adult-use transitions in Ohio and Delaware, and closing or modifying the operations of other underperforming assets.
The company, which is publicly traded in Canada, has had declining revenues and is currently operating at a loss, reporting negative earnings per share, according to securities filings. The value of the company’s stock has fallen from a high of $5.96 per share in February 2021 to $.05 per share as of Dec. 30.
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