California hashish producer and retailer Glass House Brands has withdrawn its defamation lawsuit against Catalyst Cannabis Co.
Glass House cited considerations in a information launch Monday about Catalyst’s capacity to pay a judgment and claims the California dispensary operator has been harassing its distributors.
Glass House informed MJBizDaily that continuing with the lawsuit would require revealing particulars about its clients – info it was unwilling to offer.
“Catalyst seems to wish to put your complete business on trial,” President Graham Farrar informed MJBizDaily.
“We don’t assume the business ought to be on trial, and we don’t wish to have any a part of it. The absolute last item the business wants is infighting.”
Both Glass House and Catalyst are based mostly in Long Beach, California.
Catalyst-Glass House dispute
The authorized mudslinging started in mid-June 2023, when Catalyst CEO Elliot Lewis alleged in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that Glass House was “one of many largest, if not the most important, black entrepreneurs of hashish within the State of California, if not the nation.”
That lawsuit repeated earlier claims Lewis had posted to Instagram and LinkedIn.
Glass House adopted up with a defamation lawsuit, additionally filed final summer time in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accusing Catalyst, its CEO Elliot Lewis and co-founder Damian Martin, of operating a “systemic defamatory social media marketing campaign” that “falsely” in contrast Glass House “to a Mexican drug cartel.”
In its Monday information launch, Glass House stated it produced for Catalyst “voluminous paperwork together with manifests for all of its gross sales over the related time interval.”
The firm stated the paperwork show that Glass House solely sells to licensed manufacturers, producers and distributors by way of the state’s required track-and-trace software program, METRC.
“We have by no means offered a single pound that didn’t undergo Metrc,” Farrar informed MJBizDaily.
‘They know we’re collectible’
Lewis, one of many extra outspoken critics of California’s regulated hashish business, dismissed Glass House’s claims that Catalyst is in monetary hassle.
“I guarantee you they know we’re collectible, and everyone is aware of we’re collectible,” he informed MJBizDaily.
“Clearly, they realized that handing over the invention, in my view, can be extra detrimental to their existence than persevering with to litigate.”
Lewis vowed to remain on the offensive and proceed pursuing Catalyst’s preliminary lawsuit against Glass House, although he admitted Catalyst is working by way of some discovery problems with its personal.
Catalyst operates 26 dispensaries within the state, in keeping with its web site.
Tax and regulatory lawsuits ongoing
Catalyst is engaged in a number of ongoing authorized disputes, together with a lawsuit filed in December in Orange County contending the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration and the Office of Administrative Law colluded to:
- Enact excise taxes and gather associated funds from retailers on non-cannabis merchandise, reminiscent of equipment, in violation of the state’s Administrative Procedures Act.
- Abuse their emergency regulatory authority to “cram down” improperly retroactive rules with little discover to operators.
Glass House, one of many largest vertically-integrated operators in California, trades as GLAS on the Cboe Canada change and GLASF on the U.S. over-the-counter markets.