A California cannabis dispensary owner has apologized for proudly boasting of how he’s been ripping off “mom and pop” vendors.
The owner, Norman Yousif of the Off The Charts (OTC) dispensary, was recently caught on video bragging about not paying the “mom-and-pop” vendors from where he sources some of his products.
The video has since gone viral, attracting massive, massive backlash.
Watch:
It’s not clear where/when the clip was recorded and who leaked it.
“Do you know how much money we’ve saved by not paying the vendors because they’ve been out of business or they never collected or they never lasted?” Yousif said in the clip.
“I’m talking about those f–king mom and pops that come and go. Probably saved hundreds of thousands of dollars. I mean: You don’t have to pay. You don’t have to pay,” he added.
Backlash quickly poured in, mainly on Instagram and Tiktok. On the former app, for example, the vendor Big Red’s Cannabis Co. slammed Yousif and his business.
“Here we have the CEO @otc_ceo and owner of Off The Charts dispensary talking about how much money he saved by not paying the mom and pop brands because they’ll be shut down in the next year or so,” the company wrote.
“Us mom and pop brands are the whole f–king reason. We are the ones that put ourselves on the line for medical and recreational. I’m calling for a boycott of all Off The Charts stores no vendors sell to them and no customer should buy from them support the mom and pop brand support the small guy f-ck these chads and Brads,” they added.
Look:
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Thanks to the backlash, Yousif has since apologized — kind of.
“Yousif apologized for the statement in a phone interview … but said his quote was taken out of context,” according to SFGate. “He declined to name where the video was taken, or who he thought had released it, but said it was recorded and posted without his permission.”
“Yousif said he is actively pursuing legal action against the people who released the video. He explained that the clip shows him discussing an incident from five years ago, when he said a number of different brands went out of business and disappeared before Off the Charts could pay them,” SFGate reported Thursday.
He further claimed he does pay his vendors and that his only fault is sometimes paying them late.
“My only flaw is paying them on time. Do they get paid? Absolutely. Do they get paid on time? Lately, this last year, not really,” he said.
He even claimed his store is itself a mom-and-pop operation.
“That’s why I’m kicking myself in the foot,” he added.
Yousif has also released a formal, albeit very defensive apology statement.
“I take personal accountability and apologize for the impact my words have had on members of the cannabis community. Regardless of context, the nature in which these words were spoken is inexcusable and does not reflect me personally or the OTC brand,” the statement reads.
“Detractors have falsely characterized the 20 second video snippet of a nearly one-hour conversation to imply that OTC does not pay its vendors. However, the truth is that OTC always had and will continue to pay all its vendors in the ordinary course of business,” the statement continues.
Big Red’s Cannabis Co. was for its part NOT IMPRESSED by the apology:
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“Just remember, it was the mom and pops brands that built this culture and built this industry. This industry was built on compassion and people like him came in with greed and have destroyed it. He’s not sorry about what he said he’s sorry that he got caught,” the company said.
According to SFGate, this issue of dispensaries not paying vendors is actually a major one, particularly in California.
“California’s cannabis farmers keep getting stiffed,” the paper notes. “They send their pot to cannabis stores, yet their invoices never get paid.”
“They lose sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time, and those losses put these smaller enterprises, including third-generation family farms, out of business,” according to the paper.
The problem of unpaid bills is so severe in the state’s cannabis industry that said bills contributed last year to “the collapse of the state’s largest cannabis distributor.”
“The problem has worked its way up to the state’s tax collectors,” SFGate notes. “Hundreds of pot shops failed to pay their state taxes last year and now face massive penalties. Observers say the backlog could cause an ‘extinction event’ of business closures across the state.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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