Page 20 - BusinessWest November 24, 2021

Cutting added that “a lot of the multi-state operators don’t necessarily like companies like that to sit on their shelves. But we’re basically
an open market for some of these producers to share shelf space and advertise their product here locally.”
With each business open, total sales in Massa- chusetts increase — crossing the $2 billion mark, in fact, earlier this month, a number even propo- nents might not have expected so soon after vot- ers approved legalizing recreational cannabis in November 2016, four years after giving a similar go-ahead to medical marijuana.
And those businesses mean jobs, said Jeffrey Hayden, vice president of Business and Com- munity Services at Holyoke Community College (HCC).
“We’ve experienced high levels of unemploy- ment during the pandemic; both Springfield and Holyoke unemployment have been ahead of the federal and state average. In both communities, we see a strong need to connect people to the workforce,” Hayden told BusinessWest.
That’s one reason HCC became a lead partner in the creation of the Cannabis Career Center in late 2019. If HCC exists to give people the skills they need to get into jobs, he reasoned, then
the potential of cannabis couldn’t be ignored
— especially in a city rivaled only, perhaps, by Northampton in its full-on embrace of this new industry.
“Our getting into cannabis was really just another attempt on our part to find jobs that people can get into at the entry level, or get a bet- ter job,” he explained. “It’s imperative that we find people who are unemployed, underemployed, those with limited education, limited work his-
tory, and get them into employment and on a career track.”
But cannabis is changing Holyoke in other ways, too, notably in its canal district, where long- neglected mill buildings are springing to life with cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, and sales.
“The private investment in Holyoke as a result of this industry coming to
Massachusetts has been
extremely significant,”
Hayden said. “Cannabis
companies are buying prop-
erties that have been long
underutilized — and it’s not
like acquiring a building
and leaving it as is; they’re
investing significant dollars
to improve it and create new
jobs in the city, literally hun-
dreds of jobs already. And,
obviously, the tax revenue
generated for the city is significant. This is a grow- ing industry in Massachusetts.”
That’s true — literally and figuratively. Five years after that critical vote and three years after businesses started opening, cannabis has proven to be a hardy economic driver, one that not only survived the pandemic, but thrived throughout it. And no one really knows what the ceiling may be.
Ironing Out the Issues
Not everything has been smooth in what is becoming a hyper-competitive market. Enlite is the state’s first Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) applicant to open its doors, and Yee con- cedes that the Cannabis Control Commission’s stated commitment to MBE and social-equity
opportunities — with the goal of helping com- munities and demographics negatively impacted by the war on drugs to access entrepreneurship opportunities in cannabis — has met with incon- sistent results.
“It’s a really big topic in the industry. We’ve had a lot of commissioners change out in the last year
“We put in place zoning regulations that were not onerous; we’re essentially allowing retail cannabis anywhere we allowed retail, and it was generally the same for manufacturing.”
or so, and a lot of people in the program saw CCC failing them as far as getting those applicants to the finish line,” Yee explained. “It’s a combination of things: operators with not a lot of resources can be an issue. Obviously you’ve got your multi-state operators with a million dollars allocated to their lawyers and legal teams, so they’re able to have the resources to get them pushed through a little bit faster. Those are big issues.”
But things are changing, he added, with new commissioners “really focusing on those appli- cants and assisting them, figuring out where the pain points are and getting them to the finish line and open. We’ve been seeing some traction on that.”
The process can be a tricky one (see related
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This product has not been analyzed or approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). There is limited information on the side effects of using this product, and there may be associated health risks. Marijuana use during pregnancy and breast-feeding may pose potential harms. It is against the law to drive or operate machinery when under the innuence of this product. KEEP THIS PRODUCT AWAY FROM CHILDREN. There may be health risks associated with consumption of this product. Marijuana can impair concentration, coordination, and judgment. The impairment effects of Edibles may be delayed by two hours or more. In case of
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