Missouri strips marijuana licenses connected to company accused of predatory behavior

Missouri’s health department on Wednesday stripped two coveted marijuana micro-licenses tied to an out-of-state company that had been accused of predatory practices and had listed the licenses for resale.

The two micro-licenses, awarded to Seashore Rhythm, LLC in Arnold near St. Louis and Frankenstein Enemy, LLC in Columbia, were among nine licenses the state agency revoked for not being eligible for a program aimed at helping small and minority-owned businesses break into the lucrative marijuana market.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced Wednesday that it had revoked nine of the 48 licenses it had awarded in October after previously questioning the owners’ eligibility for the program in December.

Questions regarding predatory behavior in the program designed to help marginalized communities have cast a cloud over the state’s marijuana industry for months.

One license was stripped earlier this month because the owner had a felony offense that disqualified the owner from the program. The state revoked the remaining eight licenses due to numerous violations, including providing false or misleading information to the state.

Throughout the application process, the purported owners of those eight revoked licenses had “limited to no knowledge” of agreements they had signed onto for the licenses and in some cases did not know the person who applied for the license on their behalf, the state agency said in a news release.