March and Ash, San Diego’s leading cannabis retailer, announced it will be giving its employees raises for the next month amid the Coronavirus pandemic.
Public Affairs Director, Spencer Andrews, told Wikileaf “first, our employees want to be safe and they want to work. That hard balance should be reflected in their pay. This is no different than other industries when workers are asked to go above and beyond in order to meet the challenge of an unforeseen event.”
Applied to all hourly employees, across all areas of the company, Andrews continued “as a new industry, we look closely to established industries for guidance. In this case, we looked to the grocery and pharmacy industries for guidance on steps they were taking to protect customers and workers. The grocery stores in our area announced a similar $2 hr wage increase and we thought it was important to show solidarity with their workers. Our owners grew up in an era where grocery stores provided good, stable jobs with benefits and opportunities for advancement. That’s what we want at March and Ash. So there’s both an internal recognition factor and an external alignment factor.”
Taking extra precautions to ensure its customers and employees are kept safe, employees are trained to OSHA workplace and safety standards during the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes:
- Regularly disinfecting the store and office spaces with high-grade disinfecting cleaner meeting government guidelines.
- Increasing accessibility of hand sanitizers for customers and employees at multiple stations across each store.
- Increasing regular after-hours deep cleanings of the stores.
- Ensuring employees have the information they need to stay healthy or stay home if they feel unwell.
- Decreasing the ratio of customers to employees allowed on our retail floors at any time in order to comply with social distancing.
- “..We are limiting the number of people permitted to enter the reception and floor areas to no more than 10 people at a time, while others are held outside by security and staff with distance between them to the extent there is any wait. We want no more than 1 customer per concierge on the actual floor at any time,” explained Andrews.
- Closely monitoring a variety of sources for the latest updates and recommendations for managing this situation.
Andrews told Wikileaf, “It’s been a lot of work and we’re still watching closely to determine any other changes that should or must be made, including whether we ultimate determine to move solely to curbside and/or delivery.”
Locally-owned and operated, March and Ash has licensed medical and recreational operations in Mission Valley, Imperial, and Vista.
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