Dispensary Fined $26k for Selling Cannabis Products Pulled from Dumpster

Curio Wellness was recently fined $26,000 by the state of Maryland after regulators discovered that employees at the company’s Far & Dotter dispensary in Timonium had put more than 200 grams of pre-packaged cannabis into a dumpster, retrieved the products two days later, and eventually sold the products, the Baltimore Banner reports.

The placing of the products in the dumpster, the retrieval of the products, and the repackaging of the products from the dumpster were all captured on video surveillance. An employee who was interviewed by officials said they repackaged the products after finding a “liquid substance” from the dumpster on the products’ original packaging. 

Curio, which says it conducted an internal investigation of the incident, told the Baltimore Banner that it does not tolerate regulatory noncompliance. The company ALSO noted that the products in question were “inside sealed jars, within sealed boxes, and it is undisputed that no outside material ever breached the jars or touched the product.”

Regulators said in a consent order that the cannabis products’ dumping and subsequent retrieval — which took place in July 2023 — had only been discovered after the person working as the store’s inventory manager at the time reported the incident. The individual had been terminated from their position on August 20, 2023, and reported the incident on August 24, 2023, the report said.

According to the former inventory manager, he advised the shop to destroy the products but the store’s general manager decided to repackage and sell the products.