Plants are moved to the drying room after they have been harvested at Green Paradise cannabis grow facility in Sunland Park, NM, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024.
GABY VELASQUEZ/ EL PASO TIMES
Plants are moved to a flower room and begin their flowering cycle at Green Paradise cannabis grow facility in Sunland Park, NM, on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. Each flower room holds one strain.
GABY VELASQUEZ/ EL PASO TIMES
The Red Lake Nation Tribal Council announced Wednesday that it would no longer handle day-to-day operations of its tribal-owned marijuana dispensary NativeCare, the first recreational dispensary in Minnesota.
The move comes after an employee alleged that a Tribal Council member stole a large amount of cannabis byproduct.
According to the band’s news release, an employee from NativeCare’s grow facility alleged that Tribal Secretary Sam Strong removed a significant amount of “trim” — the leaf byproduct removed from cannabis flowers after harvest — from garbage bags without authorization from the facility. The Council reviewed a report and determined that the product was not stolen but instead picked up by one of Native Care’s business partners, according to the release. The report found the trim was picked up so the business partner could turn otherwise wasted material into new products such as vape cartridges, the release states. All of the product in question was accounted for, it said.
After reviewing the report, the dispensary employee who accused Strong admitted he never saw Strong take any cannabis material from the grow facility, and that his initial report was incorrect, the release states.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Strong called the allegation “totally untrue.”
The
BUTTE — Less than one day after being held at gunpoint and robbed, a local cannabis store has its doors open and says they’re offering a $10,000 reward for the information leading to the arrest of the two individuals involved in the robbery.
“I had my back turned, there was nobody else in the store at the time, and two individuals came in. And the first thing they asked me to do was open the till for them,” says Noah Strickfaden, an employee at Greenhouse Dispensary in Butte.
Strickfaden was just starting his shift at the cannabis dispensary at 6:25 p.m. on Jan. 30 when two men in masks entered the shop with a gun.
“My initial instinct was a little bit of a—to resist but at the same time I know that that’s, you know, not the safe situation to do in this case,” says Strickfaden.
Strickfaden stepped aside and the robbers grabbed the cash from the till and a mason jar filled with cannabis products with an estimated worth of $3,000.
“Personally there wasn’t some person that I picked up that I was like, ‘Oh, I know this individual myself.’ However, this is a small town. We live in Butte,
