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The company behind one of Colorado’s largest dispensary chains has been sued by a vendor over an alleged non-payment of almost $400,000.
The Cannabist Company, also known as Columbia Care Inc., owns nineteen dispensaries across Colorado under the Green Solution and Medicine Man brands. At fifteen stores, the Green Solution is one of Colorado’s largest and longest-running major dispensary chains, while Medicine Man, which debuted in Denver in 2009, is one of the state’s oldest.
A publicly traded company that paid millions for its Colorado holdings, Columbia Care changed its name to the Cannabist Company in 2023. It is considered one of the heavyweights in legal cannabis, with 51 dispensaries across ten states. But, according to a cannabis edibles and vaporizer manufacturer, the Cannabist isn’t paying its bills.
A lawsuit filed in Denver District Court by C2C, LLC, which does business as Bonanza, accuses seventeen Cannabist stores of avoiding payments from November 2025 to February of this year. According to the lawsuit, the dispensaries were supposed to pay Bonanza within thirty days of each product delivery, but eventually accumulated a tab of $382,962.70 over 68 different invoices.
“Prior to filing this complaint, plaintiff has made multiple demands on defendants to remit payment in full for the amount owed. As of the filing of this complaint, defendants have failed and refused to remit payment for the amount owed,” the lawsuit reads.
Filed on February 24, the suit asks a judge to order the Cannabist and its dispensaries to pay Bonanza and also cover the vendor’s attorney and court fees.
The Cannabist, still Columbia Care at the time, agreed to buy the Green Solution in 2019 for a $140 million package largely made up of Columbia Care stock. In 2021, the company bought Medicine Man for $42 million, also mostly comprised of stock. Commercial marijuana profitability has taken hit in the mid- 2020s, however, especially in Colorado, where annual dispensary sales have dropped around 41 percent from 2022 to 2025 and wholesale flower prices are at a record low, state Department of Revenue records show.
The Green Solution had 21 locations when Columbia Care purchased it in 2019. Today, there are fifteen stores under the Green Solution banner. During that same span, the Cannabist stock has gone from about $6.1 per share to just over 3 cents per share, according to Yahoo! Finance.
Bonanza and the Cannabist have not responded to requests for comment.
Dispensaries running behind on payments or disputing vendor invoices is relatively common in the Colorado cannabis space. The state Marijuana Enforcement Division, which regulates and oversees commercial cannabis activity in Colorado, issued a memo in 2023 reminding business owners to honor their contracts with each other after “a series of reports regarding licensees not paying invoices.”
Bonanza was founded in Colorado in 2018 and has since expanded into Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and New York. The company was sued in 2024 by a grower, Mammoth Farms, over allegations of adding illegally sourced THC from hemp to Bonanza products. Bonanza has denied the claim and countersued Mammoth; that case is ongoing.
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Thomas Mitchell has been the news editor of Westword since February 2024. He’s been with the publication since 2017 and was formerly its cannabis editor. He’s earned numerous awards and accolades for his work, including placing second for the Marijuana Enterprise Reporting Award from the Colorado Society of Professional Journalists in 2018; being named a Top Cannabis Journalist by Leafbuyer in 2020; and placing first for the College Sports Writing Award from the Arizona Press Club in 2014. His prior work experience includes Arizona Republic, Inman News and Fox Sports.
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