After identifying what our dream looked like: A retail
cannabis shop where we can sell our own strain grown by Beverly and sold in our
own shop. What next? How do you open up any retail shop? The answer is to do a
little reading, ask questions of friends and family and in general educate
yourself. Lesson number one in being an entrepreneur: No one will give you
anything. If you want something, do it yourself.
Our first realization was that the laws in our state would
not allow us to legally operate this type of business, at least not in 2016. In
2012 Massachusetts past “AN ACT FOR THE HUMANITARIAN MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA”
(General Law Chapter 369). The use of marijuana for recreational purposes,
which is what our dream requires, will be determined by ballot question in
November 2016. Even if this does pass, which I believe it will, the actual
implementation of the laws and licenses would still be at least another year
away, if we lived in Fantasy Land.
It should be no surprise that it took The Bay State nearly 6
months from voter approval of Question 3 in November 2012 to approved
regulations in May 2013. Yet is was still another 2 years and 2 months before
the first dispensary was able to open up…albeit by appointment only. Good
grief.
So our reality is we are several years away from having our
ultimate dream, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t have a small slice of it now.
We decided the best way to put our foot forward into the cannabis retail
industry would be to open a head shop.
There were other ideas floated around before we settled on a
head shop, like opening a vape shop or even our own medical marijuana
dispensary. The vape shop lost its luster when we both realized neither one of
us was passionate enough to be involved in this segment. Neither one of us were
ever tobacco smokers. We were only interested in making money with a vape shop,
it wasn’t something we were going to be happy with. We worked the vape shop
idea for several months before moving on to our next idea.
If you are passionate about vaping and promoting vaping as a
healthier alternative to smoking tobacco, I highly recommend this as a great
start-up business. There is a fairly low cost to enter this industry and there
are many ways to make money at it. It just wasn’t for us.
The medical marijuana dispensary would be a perfect place
for us to start except this is Massachusetts and not only does it help to know
the right people, but you must also have an absurd amount of money to even
begin the process of opening a dispensary in this state. You must have
$500,000.00 of verifiable liquid assets just to start Phase 1 of a multi-step
process which will eventually cost you $81,500.00 to open your doors. That cost
only gets you your certificate to operate. And you have to pay an annual fee of
$50,000.00 to stay in business. It is legalized organized crime. You pay a
ridiculous fee every year or they shut you down. Sounds like a mafia, but
instead of burning your place of business to the ground, an official with a
badge shows up and shuts you down.
So not being millionaires put the idea of our own dispensary
out of our minds. Congratulations to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for
keeping the average American small business wannabe out of this industry and
allowing the rich to get richer. It’s
the American way right?
So it is the head shop idea we ran with that gives us the
opportunity to get into retail, get into a segment of the cannabis industry and
allows us to be in a “ready” state for when the laws eventually change. And
they will change. We are counting on it.
As we moved forward with the head shop idea we learned a
very valuable lesson, you must pay attention to your local town politics at all
times. They are sneaky S.O.B.’s putting forth their own personal agendas with
no regard for anyone but their own interests.
After finding the perfect location to open a head shop, we
found out the local town’s board of health had just recently pushed forward new
regulations that prevented the town from issuing any new tobacco permits.
In the state of Massachusetts you need a tobacco license
from the state and a tobacco permit from the town your brick & mortar
retail store will operate from in order to legally operate a head shop. Why? Because 79 years of prohibition of
cannabis has relegated all smoking accessories as a tobacco accessory. Manufacturers
of bongs, pipes, rolling papers, one-hitters, etc. can’t sell these products as
a marijuana smoking accessories because marijuana is illegal at the federal
level. A retail store is forced to get around these laws by selling these items
as tobacco accessories.
I researched why we couldn’t sell the “tobacco” accessories
as medical marijuana devices? After all my brain thought, “Well, Massachusetts
now says marijuana is a legal medicine. So why can’t a glass bong or pipe be
sold as a medical marijuana device?” It didn’t take long to get to the answer.
Only the FDA can approve a device for medicinal purposes. And it is the FDA
that has cannabis classified as a Schedule 1 drug. No way in hell will the FDA
approve anything for medical marijuana purposes. The world may stop spinning on
its axis if that happens.
Ridiculous is the word that always pops into my head when I
think about that. I bet if you surveyed 100 people on the street, “What do you
think people buy in a head shop?” I’m guessing over 98% would say the person
shopping in a head shop is buying something to be used with marijuana. No one
would ever answer, “They’re buying a tobacco accessory”. Unless of course the
person asking the question had a badge.
Even in a state, like Mass, where marijuana is now
recognized as medicine and possession has been decriminalized, you can’t sell
these items as marijuana accessories. Mass still recognizes these items as an
illegal drug paraphernalia.
Further research into the tobacco permit problem uncovered
the realization that most of the towns in the Boston Metrowest area were no
longer issuing new tobacco permits. What these towns are saying publicly is the
reason for doing this is to stop the sales of e-juice and tobacco vaping
devices to children.
If you want to pass a new regulation, no matter how absurd
it is, all you have to do is say, “We are doing this to protect our
children.” Unless you want to be thought
of as a monster who doesn’t care about kids, no one would ever argue against
that statement. Bull Shit. I smell shenanigans.
Call me a monster.
There is a bigger underlying truth behind these new
draconian regulations. (Who doesn’t love a good conspiracy theory?) It is in fact related to the impending
recreational marijuana regulations. These towns are proactively creating
regulations in an attempt to keep any recreational marijuana stores from ever
opening in their towns. I know that theory is full of holes, but I like it
anyway.
The local boards of health have over stepped the power they
have been given by preventing new small business from opening. These new
regulations already state no one under 21 can purchase vaporizing devices and
e-juice. That should have been more than enough to protect the children. All
you have to do now is enforce that law. Institute massive fines against any
business that violates this rule. But that wasn’t enough for them. They took it
one step too far and created local monopolies.
When a current business operating with a tobacco permit in one
of these towns does not renew their permit or closes their business, the number
of allowable tobacco permits issuable in these towns is decreased by one. Thus
no new businesses will ever be able to have a tobacco permit. Over time as
these current tobacco permit holding businesses close, the few remaining will
have a monopoly on all tobacco products.
So now we can’t even open up a head shop. Our dreams continue to be crushed around every
new corner we turn.
And just as a side note to the new ban on issuing tobacco
permits, this is just another prohibition that has been created. And
prohibition does not work. It didn’t work for alcohol in the 1920’s nor has it
worked for marijuana and the war on drugs covering 79 years and counting.
Attempting to limit and eventually ban the sales of e-juice
and vaping devices will only create a new criminal element to fill the supply
that will be demanded by the people who want to use these products.
As for me, I moped around for a week hating myself for not
being more involved in the local town politics. If I had been involved from the
start, perhaps I could have prevented the ban on permits. More great conversations between Beverly and I
occurred and we arrived at our next and current idea. We would focus our store
on counter-culture type items related to the cannabis industry and include some
Wiccan type items as well. Items similar to what you mind find in those unique gift
shops in Salem, MA.
And thus is born Wicked Chronic. ‘Wicked’ to represent the
Wiccan side of our store and ‘Chronic’ to represent the cannabis side.
As soon as you figure out your name, register yourself with
the Feds for an FEIN, with your state(s) as a business and purchase the URL you
want. If you have come up with a clever name, make sure no one else is using
before you start registering yourself.
I will caution you on this, do not jump too quickly into
registering your company name until you are 100% sure of the name and the type
of business you will have. I made the mistake of registering Blue Sky Vape
before we decided that we would not open a vape store. Trying to get a company
name changed is a hair-pulling experience.
Even with the great technological advances and connectivity
we enjoy every day, the state government is tragically decades behind the
private sector. There is no way to change a company name with the state unless
you fax them instructions. You can’t do it on their website, or by email with
scanned documents, nor can you call them on the phone and ask them to do it. I
thought fax machines were walking the green mile at the turn of the century. Turns out state governments can’t do anything
without receiving the same fax at least 6 times. That is how many times I faxed
the same document to the same number over a 4 week period.
Once I was able to confirm our name finally changed, then I
had to start getting the name changed at our bank. At least that what a little
bit smoother, not much? So Wicked Chronic is off and running. Hopefully we will
achieve our ultimate dream.
