Page 19 - BusinessWest March 7, 2022

Jay Candelario, seen here at the grand staircase at his B&B on Dwight Street, says Holyoke is staging a resurgence and attracting many new residents and businesses.
an “incubator” for cannabis businesses in the old National Blank Book property on Cabot Street. There, many smaller businesses are getting sup- port to break into the business and overcome the many hurdles — from financing to licensing to
Holyoke
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building a workforce — to opening the doors to a new cannabis business.
“We’re really excited about it,” said Vega, add- ing that there are a number of smaller enterprises occupying spaces in the facility and trying to move ventures forward.
Looking ahead, both Vega and Garcia said that one challenge — and opportunity — for the city is to promote the development of support busi- nesses for the cannabis sector.
Elaborating, Vega said that these businesses must now order lighting, raw materials, and other products from companies on the other side of the country, and would certainly prefer to be able to source them locally.
“They all agree; there could be substantial sav- ings if they didn’t have to order their products from Texas and Florida,” he told BusinessWest. “And we also like to think about the bigger pic- ture — if we get those kinds of companies to
land here in Western Mass., not just Holyoke, but Western Mass., there could be tremendous opportunities for the region.”
Elaborating, he said several neighboring states have either already legalized marijuana or are in the process of doing so, and having support busi- nesses that can provide lighting and products in Massachusetts, as opposed to Texas, could facili- tate efforts to make this area a hub, not just for Massachusetts, but for all of New England.
Getting Down to Business
Murphy-Romboletti said she first started thinking about running for City Council two
years ago. A former city employee — she worked in the mayor’s office and, later, the Office of Plan- ning & Economic Development — she said she has always wanted to be involved with the com- munity and knew that the Council was where one could make an impact — on the city, but also its business community.
After consulting with her bosses with EforAll, a national organization with several locations in the Bay State, including two in Western Mass., and getting their blessing, she threw her hat into the ring. She’s only been on the job a few months now, and has spent most of that time reaching out to department heads and talking with them about what they need for their offices to run bet- ter and more effectively.
From an economic development perspective, she said she has long understood the Council’s impact on business. “It has the ability to slow down process or speed up process on things,” she said. “And I think permitting, in and of itself, within our local government, is confusing and not always as necessary as it needs to be, and that’s one of the reasons why I ran.”
Elaborating, and without actually using the phrase, she said one of her goals is to help make the city more business-friendly, and especially at a time when there is so much interest in entre- preneurship — both within the cannabis sector but also well beyond it.
Which ... brings her back to her day job. EforAll is seeing growing numbers of applications for its cohorts, she said, adding there are 22 par- ticipants in the current sessions. The pandemic has brought a regrettable halt to most in-person learning opportunities (although she’s hoping that might change soon), but the agency is carry-
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MARCH 7, 2022 19