PIERCE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — A cannabis dispensary accused Pierce Township of an illegal shakedown involving hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a permit; an "extortion" that it says is happening in communities throughout Southwest Ohio.
Vext Science, which is based in Phoenix and operates six dispensaries in Ohio, filed two lawsuits against the township and is seeking $2.5 million in damages, legal fees and lost profit for the nearly two-year delay in opening a store on Ohio Pike in Pierce Township.
“Our view is we should have been given that permit on Jan. 9 when I walked in there, and we should have been open the spring of 2025, and we’re still sitting here,” Vext Science general counsel Scott Everett said.
Everett finally got a permit a few weeks ago, after a partial legal settlement with the township. He plans to open an adult-use Herbal Wellness Center dispensary in early spring 2027 at a vacant gas station in Clermont County, near the former village of Amelia.
WATCH: Cannabis dispensary sues Pierce Township over alleged extortion
"I think this was seized upon by not only this township, but others, as this is a vulnerable constituency that we can potentially make money off of,” Everett said. “I don’t think this would have unfolded this way if it hadn’t been cannabis at the center of what we do.”
Everett spotted the potential dispensary location while visiting his parents in early 2024.
“What we’re looking for is convenience to major thoroughfares, high cross traffic, anything a typical retail business would look for,” Everett said. “Then ample parking and an opportunity to put a drive-through in.”
He had some early conversations with Pierce Township officials but was rebuffed because the township had a temporary moratorium on dispensaries at the time.
"They actually reached out to me in … late August or early September of that year and said, ‘Hey, we’re looking at lifting the moratorium and allowing a certain number of stores, are you still looking?’” Everett said. “So, I said yes, came in, met with the township administrator … We came out and looked at this, he agreed this would be a good site, so that’s when I began to fixate on this and put a lease in place shortly thereafter.”
Everett signed a lease for the property in September or October 2024, and committed to pay taxes and insurance. He showed township officials drawings of the dispensary layout and assumed the permit process would move smoothly.
“Ultimately then I was presented with some conditions associated with being able to operate here, one of them which was this exclusive operating agreement,” Everett said. “Candidly, I thought that was the force of government trying to extort us.”
Everett said the township asked for a $50,000 application fee, a $10,000 annual fee and bond and 4.5 % of the dispensaries’ gross revenue, which would amount to “several hundred thousand dollars a year,” into perpetuity.
Initially, Everett thought township officials must be unfamiliar with Ohio law, which levies a 10 % excise tax on adult-use cannabis purchases and earmarks 36 % of that revenue to host townships and cities for anything from paving streets to hiring police officers.
“It also says directly in the statute that you cannot single out our business for a fee, a tax … that you don’t charge everybody else in the township,” Everett said. “I was left with, ‘Take it or leave it,’ … so I quickly concluded there was going to be no alternative to getting through this other than filing a lawsuit.”
Vext filed two lawsuits on behalf of the dispensary, New Gen Re Ohio LLC, in the Clermont County Court of Common Pleas in 2025.
One case focused on the dispensary’s zoning application. A Clermont County judge found the Pierce Township Board of Zoning Appeals’ decision to deny the permit “illegal, arbitrary, capricious, unreasonable, and unsupported by a preponderance of substantial, reliable, and probative evidence,” according to the court order.
The township appealed to the Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals, which sided with the dispensary. Afterward, both sides agreed to a partial settlement, and the township finally gave the dispensary a permit to open.
Everett has construction drawings and plans to open in early spring, with a drive-through, plenty of parking and a reception area.
“We’re excited. It’s been a long journey, but we’re excited to see how it does. We’re 90 days into Fairfield, and that’s met our expectations and then some,” Everett said, referring to another Vext dispensary that recently opened.
But a second lawsuit is pending, in which Vext is seeking $2.5 million in damages, legal fees and lost profit from Pierce Township for the delayed store opening and alleged violation of its constitutional rights and state law.
“We’re not just going to walk away and ignore our rights here,” Everett said. “We’re somewhat focused on seeing that litigation through, no matter what we do in terms of opening the store.”
Allen Freeman, chairman of the Pierce Township Board of Trustees, said he is not willing to pay anything to settle that lawsuit.
“I would like a judge to rule either way,” Freeman said. “But the notion that we owe them some random amount of money that their attorney figured out on the back of a napkin, I don’t see that they’re entitled to anything.”
A second dispensary, Shangri-La Monroe West LLC, opened this summer nearby on Ohio Pike, after its manager signed an operating agreement with Pierce Township and agreed to seemingly the same terms: a $50,000 application fee; a $10,000 annual fee; a $10,000 bond; and 4.5% of its gross sales contributed to Pierce Township as a Community Benefit Agreement.
“Look down the street at Shangri La, same township, same trustees, same government, different result,” Freeman said. “The township has rules. We are entitled to have rules for what development we put, where, and when it comes in … We have a right to tell people what kind of development we want, and where we want it.”
Freeman said the township hasn’t collected those payments from Shangri-La because it is awaiting the outcome of the lawsuit with its competitor.
“If you go to almost any other township, if you go to any other local jurisdiction, a lot of those things are there, those parts of the agreements that many other communities have put in place,” Freeman said. “So New Gen could have even gone to another community and found the same scenario.”
Everett agreed that this is happening in other small municipalities, but he still doesn’t think it’s legal.
“Where we’ve seen it most prevalently, frankly, is the southwest part of the state, and I think it is because it’s a chopped-up metropolitan area in terms of a lot of small townships,” Everett said. “This area was quick to put on a lot of moratoriums, and so it created some scarcity.”
“We’re all for contributing to the community and certainly in other markets where people have asked us, ‘Will you donate to the Little League fund?’ or ‘Will you help us with a park?’ That’s one thing. This is, you’re going to pay it or else," Everett said.
