Dreams Wellness, a medically licensed cannabis dispensary that transitioned from the unlicensed market, was shutdown by the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration and Metropolitan Police Department last week.

It is the third medical dispensary that has made it through the ABC Board and been approved for licensing to be found violating District law and selling unlicensed cannabis products. Kaliiva had its license revoked and District Cure was allowed to reopen. Both were padlocked for alleged illegal activities after opening with a legal medical cannabis license.

Dreams Wellness was redirecting from its old website (http://dreamswellnessdc.com) to a new website (https://leafdreamsdc.com/) that offered unlicensed cannabis products and psychedelic mushrooms and DMT for recreational delivery.]

The businesses had received its most recent ABC Board approval this month for packaging. It’s padlock closure followed previous allegations from regulators earlier this year that the business was conducting illicit sales. However, the ABC Board agreed to not consider past infractions of unlicensed sales in relation to approving its medical license in a consent order in early March. The business also agreed to stop gifting cannabis. The Board than allowed the shop to open with other unlicensed transitioned shops on April 1, 2025. The business was included in the ABCA website’s list of legal dispensaries.

ABCA than found Dreams Wellness to be in violation of District regulations and laws and padlocked the business almost two weeks after it opened as a legal medical dispensary. According to legal documents, MPD conduct an undercover purchase of cannabis from the business after which it executed a search warrant last week.

The agency reported finding 2.5lbs of cannabis, an ounce of of THC vape cartridges and a few grams of other THC products. Eduardo Tejada, of Springfield, Virginia, was arrested and charged with Distribution of Marijuana. He is release currently pending May trial.

However, even after getting padlocked on April 14, an unhappy Google review alleged that the shop was still offering delivery days after being closed.

According to a City Paper investigation, at least 19 medical cannabis shops in D.C. have been allowed to move forward in the licensing process despite violating ABCA’s regulations and, in some cases, D.C. law.  

Those 19 shops either continued selling unlicensed cannabis or psychedelic mushrooms after they weren’t allowed to under the ABCA regulations or continued gifting illegal THC products or mushrooms even after they received their legal medical cannabis licenses and opened.

However, these shops are the minority of the transitioned unlicensed shops. Most businesses do not have an enforcement record. Only three of the open ones have an enforcement record compared to 42 others without a record.

ABCA has closed two of the three. Yutong Zhou, an attorney for Dreams Wellness, declined to comment when reached for comment.

Dreams Wellness applied for a license during the period designated specifically for gifting shops so it was protected from enforcement for gifting cannabis until the end of March. That exemption did not include gifting after March 31 or the sale of other drugs advertised on its website.

The ABC Board must now decide whether the business can keep its medical license and reopen under certain conditions. The Board has allowed one other previously padlocked medical dispensary to reopen.

When asked, ABCA did not comment directly on why Dreams Wellness was given a license after it had been found to engage in illegal activity. The agency only said that the shop was closed permanently on April 15.