Eight Kansas City-area marijuana retailers are facing a two-week deadline to stop allegedly misleading customers into believing they're licensed dispensaries, according to Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway's office. The businesses must confirm compliance or risk legal action under state consumer protection law.
Hanaway's office said it sent cease-and-desist letters to eight stores accused of falsely claiming they were licensed to sell marijuana products, according to KCTV5. The retailers named in the letters are Motion City LLC, Prohibition Cannabis, Quality Floral LLC, Gashouse KC LLC, Dr. Smoke, TCB Collections LLC (doing business as TCB Cannabis Collections Company), EDMCapital LLC (doing business as Sacred Leaf KC Dispensary), and Shroomland LLC (doing business as Shroomland Dispensaries).
Under the terms of the letters, the businesses must halt the alleged practices and confirm they're in compliance within two weeks of issuance or face possible legal action under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, the station's report states. That statute, found in Missouri Revised Statutes section 407.020, broadly prohibits deception, fraud, false pretenses, misrepresentation, and concealment of material facts in the sale or advertisement of merchandise, according to the Missouri Revisor of Statutes.
A Pattern of Enforcement Across the Metro
Hanaway said her office will keep using the tools available to protect consumers, enforce state law, and hold bad actors accountable. “Protect Missourians from harms associated with unregulated intoxicating drugs” is how her office described the broader goal, per the same KCTV5 account.
The letters land just a day after Hanaway's office sued four Missouri retailers, including Independence's Herb Depot, over allegations they sold marijuana products mislabeled as hemp, as reported by KCTV5. The Missouri Independent separately reported that Hanaway announced four new lawsuits against retailers accused of selling marijuana disguised as hemp, part of what her office describes as an ongoing crackdown.
Earlier enforcement actions have also targeted the region. A previous KCTV5 report described cease-and-desist letters sent to 33 dispensaries statewide, with 13 of those in the Kansas City area. The attorney general's office said it sent 33 cease-and-desist letters to unlicensed retailers selling intoxicating cannabis and marijuana products outside Missouri's constitutional framework.
An Unregulated Market Operating in Plain Sight
The enforcement push comes against the backdrop of what The Kansas City Star described as a parallel market of unlicensed and unregulated hemp shops that has sprung up alongside Missouri's regulated cannabis industry. A separate Star report found there are about 50 licensed dispensaries in the Kansas City metro, while the number of hemp stores operating outside that licensed system is unclear and could equal or exceed that figure.
The scale of the issue appears substantial at the state level. Missouri officials have estimated that roughly 40,000 food establishments and smoke shops, along with 1,800 food manufacturers, could potentially be affected by the state's ban on intoxicating hemp products, according to the Missouri Independent.
None of the eight businesses named this week has publicly responded to the allegations, and it remains unknown whether any of them will comply with the two-week deadline, face lawsuits, or see further action from the attorney general's office. Hanaway's office has signaled it intends to keep pursuing cases as part of its broader campaign against retailers it says are deceiving Missouri consumers.
