California Cannabis Farm Reports Losses of $26M Following Deadly Immigration Raid

Glass House Farms, the California cannabis megafarm that was targeted in
July by a deadly Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, said it
lost over $26 million in revenue from the raid, SF Gate reports. The
company also said its quarterly harvest was down by over 100,000 pounds due
to the disruption and subsequent labor changes.

On July 10, federal agents served Glass House Farms a search warrant for subsequent
raids on its Camarillo and Carpinteria locations, where officials descended
and arrested hundreds of individuals for alleged immigration violations.
Counterprotestors clashed with law enforcement for hours around the farms,
with the Camarillo site turning into a particularly chaotic standoff.

One worker died from the raid after he fell from a greenhouse roof while
fleeing the federal agents. Officials also said they discovered over a
dozen children at the farm, prompting concerns of child labor violations;
Glass House has maintained that it did not knowingly violate any labor
rules.

Although there have been no charges filed against the company, Glass
House’s CEO Kyle Kazan called last quarter “the company’s most difficult to
date” during an earnings call on Wednesday.

“In light of the events of this past summer we made the hard decision to
completely revamp hiring and staffing practices for both employees and
third-party labor contractors. As anticipated, these actions resulted in
temporary worker shortages as well as a planned scaled back in new planting
and production.” — Kazan, in a statement

Self-described as the largest cannabis farm in the world, Glass House said
in July that the company would work to help immigrant workers caught up in
the raid, but there has been no visible outreach from the company so far,
the report said.