Legal retail marijuana is starting to look pretty mainstream, just six months after the first sales began in Leicester and Northampton.
And New England Treatment Access’ (NETA) Brookline store could be the perfect symbol of the new normal.
NETA took over the historic Brookline Savings Bank building; that name is still chiseled in stone on the beautiful neoclassical building that’s nearly a century old. The interior is even more beautiful and stately, with its glass dome and painted ceiling. It still looks and feels like an old school bank, down to the customers.
Amanda Rositano, NETA’s director of operational compliance, said they see people from all walks of life — just like a bank would.
“All across the age spectrum — of course starting at 21, but all the way up to people in their 90s,” she said. “I think you know the best way to explain it is the same type of customers that you would see in any pharmacy or bank or any retail outlet.”
NETA serves upwards of two thousand customers a day, Rositano said, which includes medical use patients. The store started selling to ‘adult use’ customers in March.
One of those customers is Jimbo Williamson. He considers himself “a regular” here. He’s been using marijuana for years, and he likes the quality of the pot he’s getting at NETA.
“This is consistent. And it's safe. And I know where it's coming from,” he said.
The price and availability of black market marijuana raised concern when the state began to license recreational marijuana shops. Some speculated that with taxes and higher prices, people would stick with their dealers.
Williamson said the black market marijuana is still cheaper. But he prefers this legal, retail experience, and he’s not alone. Sales of recreational pot now top $130 million dollars.
“The price is not quite the same,” he said, “but that's what you get for retail. It's a beautiful building. People who work in here are really nice. You know those things have to be accounted for.”
Much has been made about the delay between when voters approved recreational marijuana sales in November 2016 and when the first shop opened in November 2018. But one thing that helped the process go as fast as it did was that medical pot dispensaries could lead the way. They were already up and running, and had demonstrated they could handle sales and had a working infrastructure and safety protocols.
Seventeen of the first 18 licenses for adult use sales went to businesses like NETA because they were already selling medical marijuana. Every other state that has legalized pot for adult use followed the same path, building on whatever existed of a medical marijuana establishment.
Another area that has received significant criticism in the state’s marijuana efforts is the diversity of ownership. The Massachusetts rules for recreational pot were supposed to provide a way in for smaller businesses, and minority owned operations. Right now, there are none up and running.
But Kobie Evans is optimistic he and his partner will be “the first economic empowerment application in the state to be at provisional approval stage.” He’s secured a host agreement with the community in Dorchester. Evans says the recreational pot rules are supposed to benefit communities hit hard by the war on drugs — and there’s no better example of that than the neighborhood where he plans to build his shop.
“When the economy in Boston was terrible and no one can find jobs and so they resorted to selling drugs,” he said. “You would have these feuds that ended up with probably 10 people dying within 20 feet of where we're standing. Out of that you had the over-policing, you had people that were incarcerated for 20 years for mandatory minimums that were sentences that were legislated by the federal government. It was very aggressive very, very, very aggressive. … And people in this neighborhood feel as though they are still being policed although times have changed.”
Evans said approvals at the local level have kept other minority business owners out of the retail pot business. Local communities have the final say if a dispensary can open by granting a host agreement. But at the host agreement stage, the local communities aren’t required to favor minorities or small businesses, a “weird paradox,” as Evans described it.
“Cities and towns are ultimately trying to get the most out of big companies in return for the host agreement,” He said. “And, what that does is, it blocks out people like me, so roughly 350 to 400 host agreements have been signed but only two of them have gone to people like me.”
Evans said his deep connections to the local community in Dorchester, where he has lived and where his father ran a business, helped him secure the host agreement. But even with a host agreement in hand, there’s another hurdle for small businesses: it’s all but impossible to get a small business loan from a bank for a pot shop. Evans says he did get offers of help from investors— and that he’s fielded a lot of cold calls since he got the host agreement.
“They say, ‘Oh Kobe, let's go out to dinner and let's talk about your operation and how we can help.’ And at first you think that they legitimately want to be a partner to help you succeed,” he said. “But they are really just trying to take over your operation and co-opt your license. You sign a management agreement that effectively they have internal control, so you don't spend money unless you get their say so. You don't hire anyone unless they say so. Ultimately, they get the lion's share of the revenue. In effect that you're just an employee.”
Evans has managed to pull together the money himself, with help from friends and family. He hopes to get final approval soon.
“And from there it's just a matter of how long it takes,” to build out the store. “And then I start losing sleep,” he said with a big laugh.
Evans may not get much rest in the near future, but things could get easier for aspiring business owners like him. Lawmakers and regulators are floating proposals to help small businesses and historically disadvantaged communities — including exclusive licenses for marijuana delivery services, and interest free loans.
