Seed or Snail?

We were built for this. We will prevail.

If I could put music to this post, it would be Eric Satie’s Improvisation on Gymnopedie No.1 performed by Colin Huggins. The space between the notes is the space we all need between our own notes for creation to unfold while breathing. I’d seen this photo on our pitch decks and never really looked at it until earlier this week when it was summoned for a post-operational deck in seeking funding to “stand up” the retail component of this licensed dispensary. 

I am embarrassed to say I thought this photo was of snail-shaped gummies. We’re a cannabis hospitality brand full of creativity pushing boundaries soooo maybe? With Noma in mind, I’m guilty of watching one too many episodes of Chef’s Table. If there was a cannabis-infused episode, I wouldn’t put it past the creatives at Noma to present snail edibles. 

Alas, these are germinating marijuana seedlings - the thing at the core of all of this. The thing that gets cultivated into a thing, then produced into another thing, sold to the modern-day drug dealer who then sells it to the consumer. The last two pieces are what recreational dispensaries are responsible for and bear many responsibilities that encompass Big Business as the modern pharmacy meets recreational wellness. There are many sectors including farming, processing, regulations, banking, marketing, branding, education … you get the picture. All of this is looped into politics, community, where, when, and how cannabis can be sold from a recreational facility which varies from municipality to municipality. The state, OCM, has their compliance regulations and then each municipality has to figure out what their roll-out looks like in having a dispensary and a consumption lounge if they opted in by the end of 2021. Southampton said yes to both. We are three years in, at the finish line, and about to take first place with a licensed operational dispensary starting with delivery and then building a retail storefront. We are waiting on a “special use permit” to be granted by the town. I learned this week there are six applications for a special use permit which if granted allows that particular building to operate as a dispensary. Brown Budda New York is the only licensed business in Southampton with the ability to do delivery because we passed compliance for delivery. There are many details involved to becoming a legal operational dispensary in NY let alone Southampton - the final frontier in NY, the most eastern part of the state, with pristine ocean beaches and the highest property value zipcodes in the country. We chose Southampton for a reason, have been diligently paving the way and educating our lawyers and the community with what’s coming, who we are, and what we plan to do with our business. We are the first with a license to legally deliver NYS-certified products in the coveted Hamptons, first to market. Our license, like all dispensary licenses with a delivery program can deliver anywhere in NY state! If it’s not us delivering to the residents of The Hamptons, then it would be another - legal or not, like it or not.

There are folks out there who want in, and don’t like it one bit. Their attorneys are pressuring the Town Board to have us under a microscope while making up the rules as they go along to make things more difficult for the underdog/longshot to get what is actually in our right to have. Nothing is ever easy especially when it comes to history-making change.

The customers want us. We have worked our asses off to be in the position we are in with gumption, grit, street smarts as well as finesse. We’re creating alliances with local cultivators and hemp businesses in the wellness market who can’t wait to collaborate with us. All of this is to say, some people don’t want to play nice with those snaily seeds in whatever stage they are in. I have realized the American dream can only exist with the American nightmare. How foolish of me to forget - we can’t know day without night. We can’t know hot without cold. 

We were built for this. We will prevail. 

If you want to know more and are interested in getting involved, reach out to me or leave a comment below.

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