For about nine months in 2024, Samantha Cooley worked as a budtender at the Story Cannabis dispensary on McDowell Road near Interstate 17. In that time, she claims, the dispensary wrongfully withheld tips that customers left when making purchases.
Cooley is making those claims in a federal lawsuit filed on Oct. 29, along with two other former budtenders who worked at Story Cannabis dispensaries in Ohio and Maryland. The trio alleges that Story Cannabis violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by giving a portion of their tips to dispensary supervisors. The three plaintiffs filed the lawsuit on behalf of themselves and “all others similarly situated,” meaning they hope the case becomes a class-action suit.
Story Cannabis has 11 Arizona locations, according to its website. One of its stores in the Valley — located in north Chandler — is unionized, according to United Food & Commercial Workers Local 99 spokesperson Drake Ridge. The lawsuit claims that at least 200 of the company’s employees are potential plaintiffs…