The Berkeley Patients Group, the oldest continuously operating cannabis dispensary in the country, is facing three pending lawsuits filed over the last 13 months, alleging it failed to pay a vendor, a security firm and a landlord more than $250,000 total.
Begun in 1999 as a confederation of medical marijuana advocates, Berkeley Patients Group has been celebrated by the city and expanded into sales of recreational cannabis in 2018 when California’s Adult Use Marijuana Act took effect. In recent years it’s posted sales in the tens of millions of dollars.
But since 2018, a co-owner previously told Berkeleyside, the burgeoning cannabis market has driven down both the price and quality of dispensaries’ products, although it is unclear if or to what extent that has influenced Berkeley Patients Group’s business dealings. Neither attorneys for the organization nor the same co-owner responded to inquiries for this article…