MAG Industries of Tyrone has mostly shut down its Delta 8 manufacturing and distribution operations in Buckhannon, W.Va., where it moved those operations two years ago, citing at the time a more favorable geographical and legal environment in West Virginia for the THC product.

The shutdown — which eliminated 20 jobs in Buckhannon and left operations there “bare bones” — resulted from “changing market conditions,” “significant challenges” with integrating a new company-wide computer operating system into the facility and the facility’s “losing the company money overall,” according to an email from MAG President Grant Martin.

The former Buckhannon employees are unhappy, according to one of them, Rebecca Burr, who notified the Mirror about the shutdown.

“We were given no explanation, other than that business was slow,” Burr said in a phone interview. “Pissed off is an understatement,” she said, when asked about the mood of the former employees. “We’re furious,” she said.

The jobs at MAG were among the best-paying in Buckhannon, population 5,200, according to Burr.

“There went our livelihoods,” she said. “Now we’ll (need to) find jobs in a horrible economy.”

The former employees will be eligible to collect unemployment compensation, but MAG has declined to pay them for Paid Time Off (PTO) they’d earned, Burr said.

The employees can’t afford to hire a lawyer, she said.

“People mistake our kindness as weakness,” she said, during a discussion about hospitable spirit as experienced in the state of West Virginia. “We just want them to know who they messed with.”

The company has no legal obligation to pay the PTO — which he acknowledged was “the biggest complaint” of the former employees, Martin wrote.

“Only companies who promise to pay out PTO (contractually, in a company policy or employment agreement), are required to do so,” he wrote. “This is the same in PA and WV, legally.”

Information available online supports those statements.

“MAG’s policy to not do so is very common for a small business,” Martin added. “We don’t have the resources of a billion-dollar corporation to pay out big severance packages to laid off employees.”

The firm did, however, provide a full week’s pay for all the laid-off employees, which was not legally required, Martin stated.

“Our company leaders do have hearts,” he wrote.

“(T)hey did their best to handle a tough situation.”

MAG established its West Virginia facility because it was “more central to our customer base and to take advantage of the regulatory certainty that comes along with its status as a WV-registered hemp manufacturer,” Martin wrote.

The facility there hasn’t been permanently closed “and the details of what operations will be carried out where are still being determined,” he wrote.

MAG’s new operating system replaces a “simple, entry-level operating system that had serious limitations and resulted in inefficiencies, duplicative work and errors,” Martin wrote.

The company has worked on putting the new system in place for two years.

It has cost $2 million, twice as much as expected, he wrote.

The legal environment related to hemp products had nothing to do with the decision to draw back from West Virginia, according to Martin.

“Instead, we are prioritizing the long-term sustainability of the company,” he wrote.

That will help create more good careers in the Tyrone area, he wrote.

The company has been in business for five years and employs a little more than 80 people, more than 75% of whom are based at the firm’s Tyrone headquarters, according to Martin, who co-founded the firm with his brother, Adam, now CEO; and their sister, Megan Martin-Sunderland, the controller.

The headquarters complex in the renovated former Big Yank building includes the company’s main distribution center, which employs warehouse workers and drivers, and the main office, which has tech, legal, sales, purchasing, accounting and human resources employees, according to Martin.

Off-site and out-of-state employees are mostly in sales and merchandising, although there remain some distribution/warehouse workers at Buckhannon, according to Martin.

The company provides convenience-store clients with “snacks, toys, apparel, candy, technology accessories and more,” Grant Martin wrote.