Cannabist is the dispensary banner Columbia Care launched in 2021 and the name its parent, now based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, took in 2023. The chain stocked its own Seed & Strain, Triple Seven, Amber, Hedy and dreamt lines next to third-party brands. Since March 2026 the company has been selling itself off state by state under Canadian court protection, and the stores still wearing the name are headed to new owners.
Columbia Care's roots
Michael Abbott and Nicholas Vita co-founded Columbia Care in 2012 and built it into a multistate operator that grew, processed and sold its own cannabis. When it announced its go-public deal with Canaccord Genuity Growth Corp. in October 2018, it held 33 licenses across 13 states, including New York, Florida and Virginia, at a valuation of $1.35 billion. The shares debuted on Canada's NEO Exchange in April 2019.
The buying spree came next. In September 2020 Columbia Care closed its purchase of Colorado chain TGS, adding 23 dispensaries and six cultivation and manufacturing sites and lifting the company to 95 facilities in 18 U.S. jurisdictions. In June 2021 it closed the roughly $240 million acquisition of Green Leaf Medical, which brought the gLeaf brand, a 274,000-square-foot grow and processing facility in Pennsylvania, an 82,000-square-foot facility in Richmond, Virginia, and operations in Maryland and Ohio.
Building the Cannabist banner
Columbia Care introduced Cannabist in May 2021 as a national dispensary brand backed by its own shopping technology, including Forage, a product discovery tool that works in store and online. Illinois was one of the first states to get the new look. In April 2022 the Jefferson Park store at 4758 North Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago reopened as a Cannabist after an expansion of nearly 1,700 square feet.
In September 2023 the parent company renamed itself The Cannabist Company Holdings. It counted 125 facilities at the time, 94 of them dispensaries and 31 cultivation and manufacturing sites. Vita retired as CEO in January 2024 after leading the company since its founding. David Hart, the former president and COO, took over, with Jesse Channon, the former chief commercial officer, as president.
Seed & Strain, Triple Seven and the house shelf
Cannabist stocked a deep private-label lineup:
- Seed & Strain: everyday flower, pre-rolls and vapes under the tagline “Grown for good times.”
- Triple Seven: the top-shelf flower line, sold on clean grows and high potency.
- Amber: concentrates for connoisseurs, pitched as “Fire in, fire out.”
- Hedy: gummies with the line “Pick your vibe. Pop a Hedy.”
- dreamt: gummies and a tincture blending THC, CBD and CBN with GABA, valerian root and L-theanine, in select markets.
- gLeaf, Classix and Press round out the roster, with gLeaf arriving through the Green Leaf Medical deal.
The cultivation and manufacturing operations in the 2026 Vireo Growth deal make all eight of those brands.
Mike Tyson, Cresco Labs and the deals that shaped it
In October 2021 Columbia Care signed an exclusive national cultivation, manufacturing and distribution partnership with TYSON 2.0, the brand of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. The first product landed on November 26, 2021 at TGS stores in Colorado: 1-ounce flower bags in nine strains, with jars and pre-rolls to follow. By 2022 the rebuilt Chicago Cannabist was stocking TYSON 2.0 next to Seed & Strain, Triple Seven and Classix.
The biggest deal never happened. Cresco Labs agreed in March 2022 to buy Columbia Care in a roughly $2 billion merger, and the two companies called it off in July 2023 after failing to line up the store divestitures that New York, Illinois and Massachusetts required.
Selling off the map, 2024 to 2026
In August 2024 Verano closed its purchase of Cannabist's Arizona business and its eastern Virginia operation, including six medical dispensaries in Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Virginia Beach and Williamsburg. That November Cannabist left Florida, selling 14 dispensaries, cultivation and manufacturing sites in Alachua and Arcadia, and its state license to MINT Cannabis and SHANGO.
In August 2025 it sold its three Pennsylvania dispensaries, in Scranton, Allentown and Wilkes-Barre, to VP Investment Holdings for about $10 million in cash, keeping its Saxton grow and signing a supply agreement with the buyer. In February 2026 it closed a $130 million sale of its Richmond-area Virginia business to Parma Holdco, an affiliate of Boston's Millstreet.
The 2026 filing
On March 24, 2026 The Cannabist Company filed under Canada's Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in Ontario, with FTI Consulting as monitor and SierraConstellation Partners as chief restructuring officer. It counted 58 facilities at filing, including 43 dispensaries, had already shut New York and was exiting Pennsylvania. In May 2026 the case also received Chapter 15 recognition in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, the first for a cannabis company.
Parma Holdco also bought the Delaware business for $16.5 million, closing in May 2026. Millstreet led the lenders who took over AYR Wellness, and the former Cannabist shops in Richmond and Delaware now trade under the Ayr banner.
Who is buying the rest
Holistic Industries won approval from the Ontario court in April 2026 for its $47 million purchase of the Ohio business. In August the court approved two more deals. Vireo Growth is buying operations in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and West Virginia, covering up to 25 dispensaries, one cultivation site and one production site, for up to $35 million. Free State Botanicals Holdings is buying the Maryland business for a $13.75 million base price.
Vireo expects the deal to leave it with about 230 dispensaries across 15 states. It plans to take over one market at a time through the rest of 2026 and into 2027, as each state's regulators sign off.
Where the Cannabist sign still hangs
Until those deals close, Cannabist stores keep trading in Chicago and Villa Park, Illinois; Lowell, Massachusetts; Deptford, Mays Landing and Vineland, New Jersey; and Beckley, Huntington, Morgantown, St. Albans and Williamstown, West Virginia. The Norwalk and St. Clairsville stores in Ohio are part of the Holistic Industries sale.
In Colorado, where Vireo is picking up eight dispensaries, Cannabist announced in July 2026 that it would permanently close its Denver cultivation and manufacturing facility, with 50 layoffs effective September 11.
For adults 21 and over.