GTI STRIKE ENDS
Green Thumb Industries (GTBIF) is a Hedgeye Cannabis Best Idea Long.
After nearly two weeks, Chicago land employees at Rise have ended their strike. As a reminder, Rise is owned by Green Thumb. This 13-day strike represents the longest strike in legal cannabis history. To end the strike, GTI offered striking workers wage increases of nearly 50%. “This is just the beginning,” Teamsters Local 777 President Jim Glimco said in a statement. “We’re showing the whole industry that if you don’t play by the rules, we will pull your card.” The strike drew attention from prominent elected officials, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, who represents the area. We are glad to see that the strike is over and that GTI can get back to work in Illinois, but we do expect some impact to earnings in the near term.
Illinois CANNABIS TRENDS.
In March, Illinois recorded ~$164M in cannabis sales, representing a sequential increase of 11.6% and a YoY increase of 0.8%. Unit volumes in the month were up 12.5% sequentially and up 13.4% YoY. The average price per unit was down 0.8% sequentially and down 11.1% YoY.
Oregon official steps down.
Oregon's Secretary of State, Shemia Fagan, will resign next Monday, a little less than a week after news broke of her moonlighting for a troubled cannabis company that played a key role in an audit conducted by her office. Fagan commented that she couldn’t survive on her $77k state salary and was deeply sorry for losing the trust of the people of Oregon. Fagan also commented that she ended her $10k a month contract with La Mota, a cannabis company whose co-owner donated $45,000 to her campaign. “While I am confident that the ethics investigation will show that I followed the state’s legal and ethical guidelines in trying to make ends meet for my family, it is clear that my actions have become a distraction from the important and critical work of the secretary of state’s office,” Fagan said in a statement. “Protecting our state’s democracy and ensuring faith in our elected leaders—these are the reasons I ran for this office,” she continued. “They are also the reasons I will be submitting my resignation today.” We are happy to see this issue in Oregon go away because it was becoming a distraction and getting in the way of talks about the next steps for interstate commerce. We will be hosting a call next Wednesday, May 10th, at 2pm to discuss this topic with a panel of experts.
Cannabis Interstate Commerce Webcast:
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