Ex-staffers of Cookies marijuana affiliate TRP allege gender bias

The all-male leadership team at a Los Angeles-based national marijuana retailer affiliated with prominent brand Cookies imposed a “bro culture” that encouraged “pervasive gender discrimination,” according to a lawsuit filed by five former women employees.

The lawsuit was filed Jan. 2 against TRP Management Co., which does business under the name Cookies Retail and manages Cookies-affiliated marijuana stores under other brand names, including Lemmonade.

The suit alleges:

• TRP terminated the five women plaintiffs while taking pains to keep men employed and promoting men into the women’s former roles.
• Widespread misbehavior, including male leadership organizing a company-sponsored event to celebrate a store opening in Miami at a “well-known topless nightclub.”

TRP has yet to respond to the lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial and unspecified damages, according to court records.

A company representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment from City News Service, which first reported the suit.

The suit does not name men in company leadership as defendants, but it does mention them in the body of the complaint.

Women once held prominent roles

Four of the women claim to have been employed on TRP’s product team.

They are:

• Halley Gager, buying manager, hired in August 2020.
• Kirstyn Rawlings, vice president of buying, hired in November 2020.
• Brianna Zemel, buyer, hired in September 2021.
• Ali Lefebvre, senior buyer, hired in February 2021.

According to the suit, the four women worked on a seven-member team with three men and claim that company culture shifted when Chief Operating Officer David Chiovetti – under whose leadership they were hired – left the company “around January 2022.”

“Following Mr. Chiovetti’s departure … there was a notable change at TRP, marked by a rise in gender discrimination,” the suit claims.

But even before his departure, there were “clear signs that many of the male executives did not believe that women belonged in the cannabis space,” the suit charges.

Suit: Men promoted into women’s ex-roles

The “four women were terminated, purportedly as part of a reduction in workforce, while none of the men were let go,” according to the suit.

“Instead, the men were promoted days after Plaintiffs’ terminations.”

According to the suit, the fifth plaintiff – Brittany Carr, a Black woman who worked as a senior marketing manager beginning in September 2020 – was “terminated under the pretext that the entire Marketing team was being dissolved.”

“Instead of replacing Carr,” however, the suit claims that “TRP hired an independent male contractor” to fulfill her duties.

The suit alleges such a move was common practice at TRP, where “other men within the company whose positions underwent frequent changes due to lack of work or poor job performance … were never laid off.”

Alleged preference for ‘bro-ing out’

According to the lawsuit, TRP executives told the women that “some tables are just not meant for you to sit at” and that the company would be better suited with male representatives “bro-ing out” with other brand owners.

The suit further claims that the company allowed an “all-male Real Estate team to enjoy a team-building event in Cabo San Lucas” and permitted another male executive “to rent a penthouse suite in Las Vegas for a cannabis convention.”

The suit follows years of widespread allegations of gender bias within a cannabis industry where key leadership roles are still mostly held by men.

While women make up 39% of executive roles in the cannabis industry, according to the MJBizDaily report, “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in the Cannabis Industry,” ownership roles held by women declined from 22.2% in 2022 to 16.4% in 2023.