TRI-CITIES, Tenn. (WJHL) — Greenbean Ventures, LLC, the company behind Gold Spectrum CBD, has announced plans to lay off 121 employees across various locations in the Tri-Cities and Smoky Mountains region this summer. This information comes from a WARN Notice submitted to the State of Tennessee.
The layoffs are scheduled to become permanent on July 13, coinciding closely with the implementation of new restrictions on THCA products in Tennessee. These legislative changes, approved by the General Assembly last year, transfer regulatory oversight from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). The TABC will begin enforcing these regulations from June 30 to July 1, effectively banning products containing THCA and other intoxicating hemp-derived substances.
Public Charter 526 in Tennessee has redefined what is legally considered “hemp,” effectively outlawing not only Delta 9 THC but also other psychoactive cannabinoids, including tetrahydrocannabinol acid (THCA) products. Gold Spectrum has highlighted that THCA, which has surged in popularity recently, accounts for an estimated 75 percent of total hemp sales in Tennessee.
Zack Green, CEO of Gold Spectrum, expressed his concerns in a statement, saying, “We had hoped Tennessee leaders would find a way to slow this down and address the obvious enforcement gap first. However, that does not seem to be the current trajectory. We are confronting a harsh reality: Tennessee businesses are being marginalized while out-of-state sellers continue to ship the same products into our market with little indication of effective enforcement.”
“We had hoped Tennessee leaders would find a way to slow this down and deal with the obvious enforcement gap first,” Zack Green, Gold Spectrum CEO, said in a news release. “That does not appear to be where things stand. We are left with a hard reality: Tennessee businesses are being boxed out, while out-of-state sellers keep shipping the same products here with little sign of meaningful enforcement.”
Media spokesperson for Gold Spectrum Brandon Gee provided the following statement to News Channel 11:
Tennessee legalized, taxed and regulated roughly a quarter-billion-dollar hemp industry. Businesses followed the rules, created jobs, signed leases, hired employees and paid taxes. Now, Tennessee is moving to wipe out compliant local businesses, eliminate hundreds of jobs and gift that economic activity and tax revenue to neighboring states.
In other words, Tennessee’s Republican supermajority is actively opposing President Trump’s call to protect access to hemp products. Worse, while shutting down regulated Tennessee operators, they are doing little to stop out-of-state sellers from shipping untested intoxicating products directly to consumers — including minors.
That’s not conservative policy. That’s bad policy.
Brandon Gee, Gold Spectrum CBD
According to the notice, the Northeast and the East Workforce Development Area rapid response teams, employed by First Tennessee Development District and East Tennessee HRA, have been notified to coordinate services with the employer and affected employees.
Green said in the release that Gold Spectrum is preparing to move operations and roughly $750,000 in payroll across the state line into North Carolina to preserve business activity that Tennessee is “effectively driving away.”
“This is not where we wanted to end up,” Green said in the release. “We built this business in Tennessee. We employ Tennesseans. We would much rather keep growing here. But if Tennessee is going to let out-of-state companies keep serving this market while Tennessee companies are forced to walk away from it, that leaves us very few options.”
“Licensed, responsible, and law-abiding Tennessee hemp retailers already are competing at a disadvantage,” Green continued in the release. “Our research confirms out-of-state retailers simply ignore state-level laws and regulations to sell THCA online with wild abandon and no safeguards to protect Tennessee kids. Come June 30, they won’t have to compete against us at all.”