OLYMPIA – Lovely Buds cannabis shops in Spokane could owe employees $300,000 in unpaid wages and overtime from the past three years.
The corporation Cannabis Green, which owns three Lovely Buds locations in Spokane, and its owners Elizabeth and Todd Byczek, are facing a wage and hour complaint filed by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries and the state’s Office of the Attorney General. It’s the first litigation of this type against a cannabis retailer in Washington.
In a complaint filed Wednesday in Spokane County Superior Court, the department alleges Lovely Buds did not properly compensate their workers for overtime.
“Failing to pay workers the overtime pay and benefits they earned is wage theft – period,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in a statement. “All businesses must follow the law.”
The Department of Labor & Industries received a complaint in January 2019 against the company and found that it only paid employees overtime if they worked more than 40 hours at a single store. In many cases, however, employees worked more than 40 total hours at different stores owned by the same company without receiving overtime.
Similarly, the complaint also claims Lovely Buds did not allow employers to use the cumulative hours worked at all three stores to accrue sick leave. Employees are required to accrue at least one hour of paid sick leave for every forty hours worked.
“The paystubs did not show any indication that the workers’ accrued sick leave...
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