Cannabis Retailers Come to Culver City Promising Local Investment and A New Take on the Industry
When Culver City first moved to legalize commercial cannabis establishments in 2017, there was much pushback.
People were concerned about impacts on local neighborhoods. Would “pot shops” just down the street from schools send the wrong message? Would their popularity bring even more gridlock and noise to Culver City streets? Would their arrival mean more crime in a community that has long prided itself on being safer than the seas of Los Angeles that surrounds it?
Still, lured by the promise of additional city tax revenue and the increasing volume of research that shows medical marijuana to be beneficial for everyone from cancer patients to those who suffer from sleep disorders, the city moved forward with an intensive review process to select three operators to open commercial cannabis storefronts within the city limits.
This year, the doors on those establishments are scheduled to open, each working hard to disprove the harmful stereotypes of “stumbling and illiterate” Cheech and Chong-type characters flocking to town.
“The myth we hear most often is that cannabis storefronts are a target for crime and are unsafe. This is just simply not true,” said Armen Yemenidjian, President of Green Thumb Industries, who hopes to open his store, Essence, at 12450 Washington Boulevard. “We have state-of-the-art surveillance measures in place and our experienced security team on staff to deter any type of illegal activity. We take the safety and security of our patients, customers, staff and the community very seriously.”
“The cannabis industry will always be judged by our worst actor, so we need to always set only the best example and to put our best foot forward at all times,” said Tim Dodd, CEO of SweetFlower, which already operates several Los Angeles locations from its corporate offices at 10000 Culver Boulevard and was selected by the city as one of three retail cannabis operators. “We intend to stay true to our values – trust and transparency, inclusion and diversity, public health and safety, and community engagement – and not take shortcuts.”
Yemenidjian said licensed commercial cannabis operators are highly-regulated and incentivized to weave themselves into the fabric of the community, give back to local non-profit groups and provide a safe, clean and comfortable experience for their customers and the surrounding neighborhood.
“The cannabis industry will always be judged by our worst actor, so we need to always set only the best example and to put our best foot forward at all times”
Tim Dodd, CEO of SweetFlower
He said stereotypes and illegal dispensaries that popped up throughout Los Angeles in the wake of the state’s approval of recreational marijuana use in 2016 have made it more difficult for reputable operators.
“Many people do not realize that there is a big difference between the illegal dispensaries, which have been operating locally for many, many years; and the legal storefronts which have a responsibility to protect their staff, customers and neighbors,” he said. “Illegal cannabis dispensaries are not compliant, do not have licenses, don’t check IDs, do not care about daily customer spending limits. The illicit market in California is five times the size of the legal market in California. Essence and the other top scoring applicants in Culver City will be none of these things.”
In addition to Essence and SweetFlower, the city also selected Jushi Holdings, which plans to build a new building at 3800 Sepuleveda Boulevard to house its retail brand – Beyond Hello.
All three have an impressive background in the industry.
Jushi is a multi-state operation with 25 retail licenses from Pennsylvania to Colorado that is publicly traded on the NEO Exchange in Canada. Essence has been a commercial cannabis retailer, distributor, cultivator and producer in Nevada since 2016, operating three high-volume retail stores in the greater Las Vegas area. And Sweetflower, the only truly local company of the three, is Southern California’s largest independent Cannabis retailer and currently operates a number of dispensaries in the City of Los Angeles.
Jushi Executive VP Trent Woloveck said he is excited about the prospect of doing business in Culver City.
“We have gone out and participated in a lot of community events, and we have had nothing but positive feedback,” he said. “The more we can get out and put our best foot forward, the more people will see what we are all about.”
Trent Woloveck, Jushi Executive VP
Dodd said he believes Culver City is special.
“I love Culver City and have worked with and built businesses in Culver City since 2008, in my prior career in media and advertising,” he said. “The choice to locate not just our dispensary, but our entire corporate office here, was simple. Culver City’s values mirror Sweet Flower’s, and we are proud and humbled to work here day in, day out, as we have been since October 2018. Culver City is unique in its forward-thinking town planning, in the depth of its community engagement and community fabric, and in its artistic and creative influences. We want to be a good neighbor, a good corporate citizen and community member.”
All three retailers are among the industry’s most intriguing and enterprising brands, focusing more on the wellness benefits than the buzz, offering specially-formulated blends of THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids that promise to relieve pain, hone mental focus or increase sexual desire. As legalization of cannabis spreads across the nation, the stigma caused by 80 years of criminalization is changing and is reflected by the fact that more people than ever are taking an interest in the plant’s medical benefits.
The most common use for medical marijuana in the United States is for pain control. While marijuana isn’t strong enough for severe pain, like post-surgical pain or a broken bone, it is quite effective for the chronic pain that plagues millions of Americans, especially as they age. Part of its allure is that it is clearly safer than opiates – it is impossible to overdose on and far less addictive. It can easily take the place of NSAIDs such as Advil or Aleve, if people can’t take them due to problems with their kidneys or ulcers or GERD.
“For Essence, it’s about more than selling cannabis,” Yemenidjian said. “It’s about delivering unique – and best‐in class – experiences. The foundation of the Essence brand is built on our diverse leadership team’s vast experience, our dedication to unmatched customer service aimed toward restoring individual health and happiness and our unwavering commitment to corporate social responsibility and community engagement.”
Armen Yemenidjian, President of Green Thumb Industries
In particular, marijuana appears to ease the pain of multiple sclerosis, and nerve pain in general. This is an area where few other options exist, and those that do, such as Neurontin, Lyrica, or opiates are highly sedating. Patients claim that marijuana allows them to resume their previous activities without feeling completely out of it and disengaged.
Along these lines, marijuana is said to be a fantastic muscle relaxant, and people swear by its ability to lessen tremors in Parkinson’s disease and successfully help suffers of fibromyalgia, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, and most other conditions where the final common pathway is chronic pain.
Because the reason people use cannabis products is as varied as the products themselves, the three Culver City retailers are focused on providing education and guidance so that customers know the difference between a tincture and an oil or an edible and a flower.
“It’s important to reiterate that Essence began as a medicinal-only brand, and that one of our top priorities is ensuring that those who most need and deserve access to cannabis for therapeutic benefit are able to get it,” Yemenidjian said. “How one consumes cannabis is highly personal, and we strive to have just the right product to meet each unique guest’s needs—from first‐timers to seasoned connoisseurs. Our staff are trained to be emotionally sensitive and product knowledgeable, resulting in an exceptional and pleasant customer experience, every time.”
Part of that pleasant customer experience is shopping for cannabis in a clean, sleek and hip building that looks more like the Apple store than the smoke-filled head shops of the past.
“The way we envision this store is a beautiful glass structure that has solar paneling on the top to be able to make it a LEED-compliant building,” Jushi founder and president Erich Mauff recently told the Culver City News. “We plan to have a lot of natural vegetation, and a beautiful living tree in the middle of the building.”
Mauff said the focus on compliance does not have to negatively impact the aesthetics of the building.
“Compliance is critical, but within that, you can still have a lovely aura,” he said.
“For Essence, it’s about more than selling cannabis,” Yemenidjian said. “It’s about delivering unique – and best‐in class – experiences. The foundation of the Essence brand is built on our diverse leadership team’s vast experience, our dedication to unmatched customer service aimed toward restoring individual health and happiness and our unwavering commitment to corporate social responsibility and community engagement.”
Even before the cash register rings, the area is already reaping the benefits of retail cannabis operations.
Essence, for example, has already put its money where its mouth is, donating to five local non-profit groups, including Upward Bound House, where that money will be used towards furnishing living spaces for homeless families and the planned expansion of its Healthy Living Farm Program.
“For our community, SweetFlower will be providing local job fairs (in addition to the three we have already had in Culver City for our other local stores), a recycling program, and community volunteer hours for all our team,” Dodd said. “We have already made significant contributions of time, resources and money to a host of local charities, including Upward Bound house, Culver City Performing Arts, CCUSD and a number of non-profits via the Chamber, and we look forward to doing more in 2020 and beyond.”
At the end of the day, the success of city’s cannabis experiment will hinge on how well the three operators selected by the city perform, not just in terms of their bottom lines, but also as they interact with the community around them.
“Cannabis still carries with it a stigma that we are doing something bad,” Dodd said. “Only by being here in Culver City every day, in being trusted and transparent, in focusing on community engagement, public health and safety, and in hiring diversely and inclusively can we make inroads to counter this stigma. And we need to remember that operating in any community is a privilege, particularly a community as unique as Culver City.”