Page 22 - BusinessWest July 11, 2022

WE TALKING CLASSIC ROCK? WE’RE TALKING ROCK 102!
SPRINGFIELD’S CLASSIC ROCK ...AND A LOT OF IT!
about communicating with children about cannabis use. And then, there’s a story about entrepreneurs Phillipe and Ashlan Cousteau about their new line of “ocean-infused” cannabis products.
The past several issues and the one coming next provide more insight: winter 2021 was the ‘medical issue,’ while fall 2021 was the ‘annual’ (the third) ‘Edibles Issue.’ The summer issue, meanwhile will be the first devoted to ‘cannabis travel and tourism,’ said Kusek, noting that he’s always wanted to do one of these, but couldn’t until COVID subsided sufficiently.
Safety Administration; cannabis spas; and a broad piece on just what is cannabis tourism.
“There’s two ways of looking at it,” he explained. “People are going to destinations where there is cannabis, and that’s why they’re going there, places like Jamaica, where they may be able to visit a cannabis farm. Or, if people are traveling in California, they may want to visit dispensaries — like a brewery tour; cannabis becomes the destination.”
While cannabis is certainly changing the local and national landscape — literally and also figu- ratively — the overarching questions are: ‘what’s next?’ and ‘how big can this industry become?’
In a candid interview, Kusek, whose maga- zine is now national in scope but still pays close attention to what’s happening in this region and the Commonwealth as a whole, provided some perspective on the state of this emerging sector and what we can expect in the months and years to come.
Where There’s Smoke ...
Kusek said there has been considerable change in the landscape since the cannabis industry was born in 2016, and also since Business- West last spoke with him, just as he was launching A Different Leaf in the summer of 2019.
Perhaps the biggest change, and this has led to more competition, has been quicker action on the part of the CCC when it comes to issu- ing licenses.
“Early on, the commission was taking their first tentative steps toward licensing, and licensed very slowly, from 2018 on,” he explained. “They were not licensing dozens a week; it was in the single digits. And that created some tension within the pool of people wait- ing for licenses, and there were many kinds of businesses within that pool of applicants — locally grown companies, businesses coming into Massachusetts from other states — MSOs (multi-state operators), and a pool of applicants under the social-equity provisions of the law.
“The state was not speedy in granting licenses, and you had a fair number of businesses who burned through their capital waiting for licenses. It’s not like opening a restaurant, where you find a space, and you rent it, and you go to the town and you get your food permits and then you acquire a liquor license; it could take a while, but it’s not that long a process,” he went on. “With cannabis, early on, you had people who had to rent a storefront, because you needed a license to get the host-community agreement with your town. There are people I talked with who had their host-community agreements and had rented a building, and they never opened their doors til three years later.”
He said there are more than a few examples of entrepreneurs who burned through their money, with an emphasis on their money, because one cannot get bank financing for such businesses, because cannabis is still illegal federally. But the situation is improving, he noted, and this is leading to more ventures opening their doors, thus changing the competitive landscape, at least in some communities.
Indeed, there are several cities and towns where cannabis has a huge presence and large impact on the local economy — Holyoke, Northampton, and Easthampton are on that list — and others where it has little if any, such as West Springfield, where a moratorium on such businesses still exists. Many lie somewhere in the middle, he said, add- ing that their status depends largely on how ‘friendly’ these communi- ties are to the industry.
“This is the first summer we thought we could do travel and tour- ism,” he said, adding that the issue will include
pieces on traveling with cannabis — what’s legal
and what isn’t, according to the Transportation
“Competition has come to the market — quickly. In some places, dispensaries that were the only game in town — those that had first- mover advantage — are no longer the only game in town.”
The varying degrees of friendliness leave entrepre- neurs with some choices, said
Kusek
Continued on page 44
22 JULY 11, 2022
CANNABIS
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