Revolutionary Clinics, which has two medical marijuana dispensaries open or proposed for Cambridge, said in the suit that the ordinance defies state law, which says cities and towns can’t prevent medical marijuana dispensaries to convert to recreational stores. But the company, which has locations in Cambridge and Somerville, said the two-year delay will hurt its businesses, estimating a revenue loss of $700,000 per store each month that Cambridge delays its opening.

“(Registered marijuana dispensaries) delayed entry into the adult-use marketplace will completely upend their reasonable investment-backed expectations, saddle them with additional years of overhead costs without opportunity to recoup them, create unreasonable risk with regard to their time, money and resources, and ultimately serve to harm the very patients for which these companies owe their predominating purpose and existence,” the suit says.

Cambridge City Councilors Quinton Zondervan and Sumbul Siddiqui, who proposed the ordinance, did not immediately return calls for comment about the suit. Cambridge’s city solicitor also did not immediately return calls for comment.

Revolutionary Clinics claims it’s already feeling the effects of the moratorium, and has faced difficulty raising investment needed to sustain its business operations due to “the dramatically increased risk associated with investing in the Cambridge market.”

Meanwhile, those who should have benefited from the ordinance — the economic-empowerment applicants — say the threat of a lawsuit from medical marijuana dispensaries has them worried they might be prevented from opening if the case drags on in court. Sieh “Chief” Samura, an equity applicant and entrepreneur who is pursuing a dispensary in Cambridge, told the Business Journal last month that he feared the moratorium would “hold the process up in the hopes people like me will lose our grasp on the expensive real estate so they can come in, get the real estate, replace the RMDs to supply products to everybody.”

But Revolutionary Clinics CEO Keith Cooper told the Business Journal his company isn’t trying to slow down economic empowerment applicants, he simply wants the moratorium associated with the existing ordinance to be lifted.