David Spradin is the CEO of a California-based marijuana company called Perfect Union.
It has 14 marijuana stores between Los Angeles and Sacramento, six stores in New Mexico and has had stores in Oregon and Washington, says Rick McAuliffe, a Rhode Island lobbyist who now also serves as a director for Spradin’s new local affiliate: Perfect Union-RI.
The company and 27 other businesses all filed applications last month for a chance to run one of six new medical marijuana dispensaries planned for Rhode Island.
While Spradin’s local venture incorporated just in November, the Californian has been around, buying up one marijuana cultivation operation, in Warwick, and purchasing a Providence site for a possible second indicators of the interest some outside investors have with Rhode Island’s booming, multimillion-dollar marijuana industry.
Slater Compassion Center PHOTO: GoLocal
A worker at a Rhode Island medical marijuana dispensary who reportedly drew a gun on a patient had previous multiple warrants out for his arrest.
GoLocal talked to multiple Rhode Island law enforcement agencies who had involvement with the worker, the Slater Compassion Center s valet Julio Davila.
All of these incidents, some of them violent, raise questions about who is working at these facilities and if any background checks are being conducted.
As Davila works for a contracted valet company, owned by a prominent Rhode Island businesswoman, he is not required to get a compassion center background check.
Wellington.Scoop
Two Wellingtonians have become Companions of the New Zealand Order of Merit in today’s New Year Honours List:
Sue Chetwin, for services to consumer rights.
Having begun her career in journalism, Ms Chetwin was editor of the Sunday News from 1994 to 1998, the Sunday Star-Times from 1998 to 2003, and founding editor of the Herald on Sunday from 2003 to 2005. As Chief Executive of Consumer New Zealand from 2007 to 2020 she successfully campaigned for many important consumer law reforms, including prohibitions on unfair contract terms, fairness in consumer credit contracts, country of origin labelling, and controlling door knockers. She has led other successful campaigns on behalf of consumers including calling for mandatory standards for sunscreens, helping to regulate mobile truck shops, and calling out businesses on misleading claims such as greenwashing. Her commitment to consumer rights have contributed to New Zealand having a strong consumer protection ethos
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The Wellingtonian is to be a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to athletics and charitable causes in the New Year honours.
Moon, 51, started focussing on running in the early 1990s and won 21 New Zealand athletics titles over her career which ended in 2012.
She was twice the World Mountain Running champion in 2001 and 2003 and in 2020 was recognised by the World Mountain Running Association as the second-ranked female mountain runner of all time.
In 2010 she won the World Tower Running Championship and World Vertical Running Championship and in 2012 went even faster in the annual race up the 1576 stairs of Empire State Building in New York finishing the skyscraper run in 12 minutes and 39 seconds, 34 seconds faster than the last time she won in 2010.