Great news for the legal cannabis industry amid this trying coronavirus outbreak crisis. After a brief closure, San Francisco dispensaries were given the greenlight earlier this week to reopen via an emergency edict by Mayor London Breed, her shelter-in-place order for residents notwithstanding. In a win-win for the local industry, these businesses were deemed to provide “essential needs” during this pandemic.
The mayor’s order came on the heels of a March 17 tweet by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, in which the city agency announced that, “Cannabis is an essential medicine for many San Francisco residents. Dispensaries can continue to operate as essential businesses during this time, while practicing social distancing and other public health recommendations.”
Speaking to SF Weekly before Mayor Breed’s order, Supervisor Matt Haney said he felt “very strongly” that dispensaries should be open for pickup and delivery. ““There’s absolutely no logical reason to shut down delivery. Delivery is still happening for everything else. Why would you shut down local cannabis delivery operations?”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed (C) speaks during a press conference as San Francisco police chief … [+]
GETTY IMAGES
As reported by KTVU.com, a local news outlet, the city’s health department “initially ordered dispensaries and delivery services closed Monday night.” Grocery stores and pharmacies were allowed to stay open, however, as they were listed as essential businesses. But that got changed after the city’s health department reversed their official stance regarding dispensaries, said Supervisor Haney in a tweet.
Cannabis professionals in the Golden State are hailing the decision to reopen the dispensaries as a benchmark in the history of the space. Says Julia Jacobson, CEO of Oakland, California-based Aster Farms, a sustainable cannabis company: “This has set a new precedent of acceptance and importance of cannabis in our society. This is especially an important win for medical patients who in many ways were left behind in the rollout of recreational.”
Jacobson’s sentiments were roundly echoed by Sally Nichols, president of Bloom Farms CBD, a producer of hemp-derived CBD. “For decades, cannabis has fought to evolve from California’s secret lover and take its spot alongside [the state’s] medicine and culture as a rightful partner,” she said. “Cannabis is essential to millions, and this moment has further legitimized the plant and industry.”
But there’s also another significant benefit to the San Francisco decision to name cannabis businesses as “essential.” By reopening the dispensaries, consumers won’t be tempted to buy into the unregulated market. “[This] is the same illicit market that spawned the epidemic of vaping-related lung injuries last fall,” said Tiffany Devitt, chief of government and consumer affairs and president of wellness at CannaCraft, a seed-to-shelf cannabis producer and distributor. “Given how strained our healthcare infrastructure already is, no one wanted to take that sort of risk.”
Liquor and marijuana were apparently essential to some people in Las Vegas on Tuesday night.
In the hours after Gov. Steve Sisolak directed all “nonessential” businesses to close, some people in the Las Vegas Valley headed to bars, liquor stores and cannabis dispensaries ahead of the directed closures of businesses including bars, casinos and gyms.
“We won’t be able to do anything but stay at home,” David Humphries, 73, said outside a Lee’s Discount Liquor on Flamingo Road. “Weed, liquor – without that, it would be crazy to stay in the house.”
By noon Wednesday, the governor said, all “nonessential” businesses have to be closed in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Essential businesses, according to the governor’s office, include grocery stores, banks, gas stations, banks and medical offices, as well as restaurants that can deliver or fill to-go orders.
A line wrapped around the Essence Cannabis Dispensary building on Tropicana Avenue and Jones Boulevard. One customer near the front of the line who declined to be identified said he had been waiting for more than two hours.
At O’Aces Bar & Grill, regulars packed the bar area as the clock ticked toward the governor’s mandated midnight shutdown of gaming devices, including the slot machines that are inside the bar.
“It’s the last hurrah,” general manager John Wiggins said. “This is like a family down here, and it’s kind of like a going-away party, or at least a see you later.”
While some pot shops and liquor stores saw people rushing in to stock up, many stores across town saw business as usual Tuesday night.
With a shopping cart full of Heineken beer, Humphries, who said he is a Vietnam veteran, said he’s never lived through anything like what Sisolak has ordered.
“You would think this would be an essential business,” he quipped about the liquor store.
When San Francisco announced its “shelter in place” order this week, it said only “essential businesses” could remain open to support the public’s needs, such as grocery stores and gas stations. Missing from that list were marijuana dispensaries.
But a day after residents were told to stay home, the city revised its position and deemed cannabis “an essential medicine,” allowing stores to open.
Mayor London Breed announced “adjustments” to the city’s public health order issued the previous day. It originally said essential businesses, including banks and pharmacies, could remain open while residents were required to stay in their homes.
Now dispensaries and marijuana deliveries are deemed critical.
“In terms of the cannabis dispensaries, the Department of Public Health today clarified that since cannabis has medical uses, dispensaries will be allowed to operate as essential businesses, just as pharmacies are allowed to do,” she added.
After the city’s initial announcement ordering residents to remain inside “with the only exception being for essential needs,” officials from both the city’s health department and its Office of Cannabis got in contact with local marijuana industry leaders, according to SFGate.
The news site notes that city leaders acknowledged “the situation is fluid” and city officials were working to “craft a strategy” to allow marijuana businesses to support residents who needed access to their products.
By Tuesday evening, the San Francisco Department of Health tweeted dispensaries can “operate as essential businesses” while also suggesting social distancing recommendations be followed.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday announced an executive order directing the state’s non-essential businesses to put in place telework policies by this Friday. Businesses exempt from the list include grocery stores, media, banks and other financial institutions.
Reached for clarification, a spokesperson for the governor tells NPR, “registered organizations in the State’s Medical Marijuana Program are essential medical providers and will allowed to remain open.”
This comes as the governor and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are at odds at whether a “shelter in place” order should be put into effect. The mayor said on Tuesday, “New Yorkers should be prepared right now for the possibility of a shelter in place order.” But on Wednesday, the governor reiterated his unease about issuing such an order, saying, “you close down businesses when you do shelter in place, so that doesn’t make sense to me.”
Also, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has issued new, temporary guidelines, relaxing where medical marijuana sales can take place in order to to “help reduce contact between individuals.”
The state will now “permit the dispensary to sell medical cannabis on the dispensary’s property or on a public walkway or curb adjacent to the dispensary,” the state announced Tuesday.
Before the “shelter in place in” order in San Francisco was set to go into effect midnight Tuesday, there were reports of long lines outside of dispensaries. Other counties across the state have also announced sweeping restrictions.
Some U.S. dispensaries have decided to close their doors in light of the crisis.Organic Alternatives, in Fort Collins, Colo., said it was attempting to stem gatherings at its shop and has temporarily shut down operations “until further notice,” citing “the lack of availability of testing for COVID-19 to our community.”
“As a long standing business in this community, we feel it is our responsibility to do what we can to help stop the spread of this virus,” the dispensary said on its Facebook page.
Las Vegas and cannabis consumption may sound like a match, but with so many things to do and so many options to consider consuming, how do you know which buzz-builder to bet on? To cut through some of the cannabis clutter, we tapped some top budtenders (those who work behind the counters) at a selection of the city’s dispensaries and asked them for a few pot-pairing pointers.
Before we dive in, here are a few important things to remember.
• Although recreational cannabis use is legal in Nevada and has been since 2017, public consumption is not, and this includes at most hotel and casino properties.
• You’re likely to hear the folks across the counter (and below) using some technical-sounding jargon when making their recommendations. Of the two types of cannabis plant, cannabis sativa is generally thought to produce a more energetic, uplifting high, while cannabis indica produces a more mellow, relaxed high. A hybrid of the two shares some characteristics of both.
• You’re also likely to hear a lot about terpenes, the aromatic oils that give different cannabis strains their distinctive smells (limonene has a citrusy scent, for example, while pinene is redolent of pine trees).
• The effects of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive compound in cannabis, can vary by person and consumption method (smoking versus ingesting it, for example), so be cautious. “You can always take more,” the saying goes, “but you can’t take less.”
Cannabiotix sativa “L’Orange” and an Essence grinder sold at Essence Cannabis Dispensary on the Strip in Las Vegas.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
When there are wedding bells
If you’re visiting Vegas without a vehicle, beat feet to Essence Cannabis Dispensary(2307 S. Las Vegas Blvd.), a small dispensary on the northern end of the Strip between the Sahara and Stratosphere.
The interior feels spare and clinical but the staff is friendly, knowledgeable and patient with the walk-in canna-curious. Because the Las Vegas Boulevard outpost (there are several across the state) is just a few steps from the Chapel of the Bells wedding venue, budtender Lil Bit Atkinson offered some wedding-specific recommendations.
BaM Pretzel Bites, which is THC-infused caramel sandwiched between two pretzel squares and dipped in chocolate.
(Shannon Dorn)
A bachelorette party-starter: “Think edibles,” Atkinson said. “Definitely consider a THC-infused drink like CannaPunch’s Pineapple Mango Delight, which is good for socializing, or maybe BaM Pretzel Bites, which is THC-infused caramel sandwiched between two pretzel squares and dipped in chocolate.”
Wedding-night wind-down: “Go with a topical — like an intimacy oil,” she said. “Evergreen Organix makes a really nice one that you can use as a massage oil. It’s a base of coconut oil infused with vanilla essence, lavender oil and cannabis.”
If you’re going to a casino
Virtue Las Vegas’ Pure Haze is a high-end Sativa strain. It has a strong, uplifting, clear-headed effect that allows for mobility.
(Zachary Jorgensen / Cultivation-Virtue Las Vegas)
Jardin Premium Cannabis Dispensary(2900 E. Desert Inn Road), in an office park about three miles east of the Strip, caters mostly to locals and the celebrity set (including 2Chainz, who shot an episode of Viceland’s show “Most Expensivest” here). It’s also where you’ll find veteran budtender Brandi Lawrence offering weed wisdom.
If you’re hoping to court Lady Luck on the casino floor — or at a bare minimum keep focused for a night at the gaming tables, Lawrence suggests a sativa. “Or maybe a hybrid, because a hybrid will give you a nice balance and keep you from being too jittery,” she said, recommending Viva La Buds’ Bruce Banner for its relaxing but not sedating effects, and Virtue’s Pure Haze, which she says keeps the mind alert but the body relaxed.
“You don’t want to be too uptight but you want to still be able to focus,” she said.
If you’re pulling an all-nighter
NuWu Cannabis Marketplace (1235 Paiute Circle) is about three miles north of the northern end of the Vegas Strip so you’ll need a car, cab or ride-share. (Do not, under any circumstances, consume cannabis and try to drive.)
The 10,000-square-foot store, fronted by floor-to-ceiling glass walls, feels like a trendy brewpub. It’s where you’ll find Jackie Mondragon, one of the dispensary’s standouts budtenders, making her recommendations based on different strains’ terpene profile (those aforementioned aromatic oils).
If your aim is to stay up until the sun rises, look for a strain high in the terpene pinene “because it promotes alertness and keeps you up,” said Mondragon, adding that it’s also prized for its ability to combat inflammation, “so if you’re up and about and moving around, your feet won’t swell as much.” Two high-pinene strains stocked at NuWu are Smoke Signals Reserve OG Pebbles and Bohemian Brothers’ Starberry.
Planet 13 Las Vegas Dispensary is a cannabis superstore for the recreational marijuana user.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
If you’re seeing a show
Planet 13 Las Vegas Dispensary(2548 W. Desert Inn Road) is about half a mile west of the Strip but draws about 115,000 visitors a month by providing the same kind of over-the-top visual stimulation as Strip properties do (think neon trees sprouting from the roof, an hourly choreographed indoor drone show).
If you’re headed to one of the city’s myriad Cirque du Soleil shows, Chad Henry, one of the dispensary’s 85 budtenders, has a preflight recommendation: a sativa or a sativa-dominant hybrid if you plan to be in a theater seat.
“[Medizin’s] Mango Kush is a fantastic option,” he said, “It’s extremely cerebrally stimulating but not to the point that you’ll want to get up and move. … You can sit there relaxed and enjoy everything that’s coming at you.”
After trying for years to open a cannabis business in San Francisco, Ray Connolly and his husband, Desmond Morgan, will open the doors of their first dispensary, in the city’s Castro District.
“We’re two married gay men opening up a dispensary in the heart of the gay neighborhood, so the mapping of it is really perfect,” Connolly says.
Eureka Sky, which opens Jan. 25 at 3989 17th Street, received the first equity cannabis business permit issued by San Francisco’s Office of Cannabis. The roughly 2,300-square-foot dispensary storefront is owned by Connolly, Morgan and equity partner Chris Callaway. Equity partners and owners in San Francisco have been negatively impacted by cannabis prohibition or meet other criteria that allows them to receive government support as they enter the cannabis industry.
With plans to be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, Connolly says Eureka Sky will sell flower, edibles, pre-rolls, concentrates and CBD pet products. The company has hired a chief technology officer, Steve Delavan, as well as a buyer, and plans to soon hire a staff of budtenders.
Connolly’s and Morgan’s decision to open a dispensary has roots stretching back decades. Both their fathers and Morgan’s stepfather died of cancer when they were young. These members of the older generation didn’t consume cannabis, and Morgan notes it wasn’t legally made available to them. But more recent medical studies stating the benefits of cannabis, including for cancer patients, helped prompt Connolly’s and Morgan’s decision to join the industry.
“I’m a longtime cannabis supporter and user, but it was one of the compelling events when the results started to come on just around the medicinal use, that we decided to get into the cannabis industry,” says Connolly, who worked as a software executive for 23 years.
Morgan, who was employed in the pharmaceuticals and biotech space for about 20 years, learned about the endocannabinoid system more than a decade ago while employed at a company that worked on a diet pill.
“I think cannabis has got such a bad rap for the longest time, because it was just clumped together as being a drug,” Morgan says. “Yet a lot of people don’t realize the medicinal benefits of cannabis and that our bodies have our own mechanisms [for receiving it] in terms of the endocannabinoid system — it’s all natural.”
Photo courtesy of Ray Connolly
Eureka Sky’s interior
In addition to Eureka Sky, Connolly and Morgan plan to open a second dispensary, called Sea Weed, in Fisherman’s Wharf. They and equity partner John Wood are still building out the space but plan to open in March.
Pending the receipt of a permanent permit, Connolly and Morgan aim to open Sea Weed at 2627 Taylor Street. It’s the same address where they tried to set up a medical dispensary in 2015, prior to the passage of Proposition 64, but, Connolly says, were driven out by surrounding businesspeople who opposed a cannabis shop in the neighborhood.
“At that time, the merchants of Fisherman’s Wharf literally rented a Greyhound bus, and they had their employees and the owners and managers all go down to city hall and fight it,” Connolly says.
In the intervening years, San Francisco examined the economy of Fisherman’s Wharf and learned that having one or multiple dispensaries to serve tourists and residents could be beneficial for the neighborhood, Connolly says. “When I went back to them the second time, they had a different point of view of opening up a cannabis dispensary,” he says.
Equity in San Francisco’s cannabis program
In San Francisco, permits are currently only being issued to equity applicants, equity incubators and operating cannabis businesses.
To apply for a permit, equity applicants must first be verified with the Office of Cannabis. And to be verified, prospective applicants must meet the following criteria:
The verification process for prospective equity applicants opened in March 2018, and the Office of Cannabis began accepting applications in May of that year, according to a spokesman from the office. As of Jan. 23, 325 equity applicants have been verified, the spokesman says.
Once they are verified, applicants will then take steps such as work with San Francisco Planning to find a location, register with the city and state, consent to a background check and disclose ownership materials, according to the Office of Cannabis website. Furthermore, they must follow multiple security steps, and apply for and receive city permits from departments such as Planning and Building Inspection.
In Connolly’s and Morgan’s situation, equity partners Callaway and Wood approached them about working together, Morgan says. Callaway was arrested in 2000 for cultivating cannabis for the terminally ill, according to hoodline.com. Wood also had previous ties to cannabis; he was good friends with renowned cannabis activist Dennis Peron, Connolly says. (Both Callaway and Wood were unavailable for interviews before Cannabis Dispensary’s deadline for this story.)
As more municipalities legalize cannabis, Connolly says San Francisco’s equity program can provide a model for helping the people who played a role in creating the industry when it was still a black market.
“There are individuals who have been impacted by things that had transpired in their lives because of cannabis, that may have found themselves not being able to get jobs or not being able to keep jobs,” Connolly says. “So, this is a program where business owners like Desmond and I can actually help the individuals that helped build the cannabis industry.”
Software for San Francisco’s equity applications
To streamline the review and processing of equity applications, the City and County of San Francisco has teamed up with government technology company CityBase. San Francisco already used CityBase’s management and payment tools, so it asked the company to see if they could be used for cannabis permitting.
The system’s software gives applicants unique identifiers and allows to fill out documents without having to continually repeat steps, says Josh Goldstein, CityBase chief product officer. At the same time, various city departments involved in the application and permitting process, such as Planning, Fire and Police, can log in and access pertinent information.
Having a simple and reliable system for processing applications and issuing licenses and permits helps San Francisco address equity in the cannabis space, Goldstein says.
“Part of it, I think, is just really just making the user interface simpler, I think is a step toward equity in and of itself, because you’re inherently penalizing businesses that have less resources — smaller businesses,” he says. “The more regulatory barriers you have up, the more you’re discriminating against those, in my opinion.”
Replacing outdated or manual systems can allow governments to provide more equity to businesses and residents, says Liz Fischer, CityBase chief customer officer, adding that her company’s work with San Francisco on cannabis applications, permitting and licensing is an explicit example.
“What’s interesting to me, as someone who works with local government clients and tries to solve the access and equity equation from a lot of different perspectives, is these problems are relevant to every person doing business with local government,” Fischer says. “But because cannabis is newly legalized and is therefore a new business industry … the government side has a chance to consider these things from the ground up, like the entire permitting process, licensing process and the steps in that process that either aid or prohibit someone from participating.”
