Trulieve is shutting down all three of its Massachusetts cannabis dispensaries and its local manufacturing plant, the company announced Thursday.
"Over the past year, Trulieve has worked to streamline and optimize operations across the organization focusing on markets with long-term growth potential," the company said in an email. "Some of this work includes closing select retail locations in California, exiting Nevada and reducing production to match consumer demand across multiple markets. Today we announced that Trulieve will close the Grover Beach, California location and wind down operations in Massachusetts which will affect 128 employees as part of our ongoing efforts to focus on our strategy while bolstering our business for long-term success.”
The moves follow last year's exit of California retail assets in Palm Springs and Venice, the company said, as part of ongoing efforts to preserve cash and improve their financial performance.
"These difficult but necessary measures are part of ongoing efforts to bolster business resilience and our commitment to cash preservation as we continue to focus on our business strategy of going deep in our core markets and jettisoning non-contributive assets," Chief Executive Officer Kim Rivers said in a statement. "We remain fully confident in our strategic position and the long term prospects for the industry."
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The company operates cannabis dispensaries in Framingham, Northampton and Worcester, as well as a manufacturing plant in Holyoke. It also has dispensaries in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The Massachusetts dispensaries will close on June 30, and Trulieve said it expects to cease Massachusetts operations by the end of the year.
The decision to shutter its Massachusetts operation comes after an employee was killed at the company's Holyoke plant in 2022.
According to federal and city records, 27-year-old Lorna McMurrey went into cardiac arrest at Trulieve’s cultivation facility in Holyoke on Jan. 4, 2022. She died at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield days later.
An Occupational Safety and Health Administration determined that she died from occupational asthma due to exposure to ground cannabis.
Trulieve reached a settlement with OSHA late last year, paying a $14,502 fine and agreeing to develop a training program alerting employees to potential allergic reactions they might experience from working with ground cannabis dust in an occupational setting.
