Speak For Change With Thomas Sage Pedersen
Welcome to Speak for Change with Thomas Sage Pedersen! Our mission is to inspire and promote positive and lasting change in our local & global communities.
Speak For Change With Thomas Sage Pedersen
Ep.140 SFC LIVE! |Bryce Berryessa|Navigating the Waters of Cannabis Culture in Santa Cruz County
Support Project
https://www.hookoutlet.com/
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/support-wamm-a-champion-of-medical-cannabis-access-and-community-safety-in-santa-cruz
About Bryce Berryessa/Episode
Bryce is the owner of The Hook outlet and Treehouse Dispensary. He is in partnership with WAMM Phytotherapies.
This episode is part of our Speak For Change Live series which we partner with Indexical to host live events with live music, and conversations in front of a live audience. Today we spoke with Bryce Berryessa in regards to cannabis in Santa Cruz county.
Bryce is the owner of Treehouse dispensary and the Hook Outlet. We also discuss his current project which he is partnering with WAMM phytotherapies to open a dispensary on the Westside of Santa Cruz in the old Emily’s bakery location to provide cannabis to low income terminally ill patients.
As you will hear there has been resistance to this by parents & school officials based on misleading data, falsehoods, and just good old fear of change. If you would like to support this project pleas show up this Thursday March 7th at 809 Center street at 7pm to voice your support.
Welcome back to Speak for Change podcast. I'm your host, thomas Sage Pedersen. Today is a special episode. It's part of our Speak for Change live series, which we partner with in Dexcool to host live events with live music and conversation in front of a live audience. Today we spoke with Bryce Beriesa in regards to cannabis in Santa Cruz County. Bryce is the owner of Treehouse Dispensary and the Hook Outlet. We also discussed his current project, which he is partnering with WAM Cytotherapies, to open a dispensary on the west side of Santa Cruz in the old Emily's Bakery location to write cannabis to low-income terminally ill patients. As you will hear, there has been resistance to this project by parents and school officials based on misleading data, falsehoods and just good old fear of change. If you would like to support this project, please show up this Thursday, march 7th, at 809 Center Street at 7 pm to voice your support or maybe write us a letter of support. And for more info on just what's going on, please visit hookoutletcom. Thank you, enjoy the show. Testing how much weed.
Speaker 2:Do you have to smoke to become a cannabis expert? Because I would bet there's a lot of experts in the crowd tonight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're both not on. Yeah, so we're just even more of an intimate experience. Just listen up. Yeah, oh, there it is. Scream at each other.
Speaker 2:No, Can I start by saying that Chris is a really hard act to follow, but thankfully I have a lot of practice, oh man. We're just getting warmed up.
Speaker 1:Can we just get around and applaud for Chris and her brilliant crew of musicians that she brought up here? Oh my God, it's amazing. But Bryce, long time no talk. So this I'm Thomas H Pedersen For you.
Speaker 1:For those of you who don't know, I have a podcast called Speak for Change and these are our live events. We do pretty much monthly. It's like kind of like in three months segments. At first it was monthly, but then I realized I got like burned out way too fast and that was like pretty crazy and it was fun, you know. But yeah, I'm so excited to have Bryce here. You know, we've been working with each other recently and it's just it's been an, it's been an honor to like know this man. I'm just saying, like this guy on so many levels, I'm gonna do this. It's just a man of integrity and I, you know you just don't meet a lot of those folks in community and so it's, it's it's been an honor to like you know, be in communication and friendship with you. So thank you. If you don't know, he is the owner and the hook outlet and treehouse dispensary and is it the license holder now of Wham.
Speaker 2:No, no, we're in partnership with partnership to open a new dispensary, yeah, on the west side.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so yeah. So who else to talk about cannabis then this cannabis expert?
Speaker 1:here, so, yeah, I mean this topic matter is is really interesting to me. Just in my brief experience of life, I've had cannabis, has has, you know, like in high school, you know has has been looked at as like a equivalent to meth. Where I was raised, you know was something that if I had any of it I could get arrested for a long time. And now it's like, you know, you go to these dispensaries and they're like akin to, you know, like Apple stores almost. You know they're really clean and nice and everyone's smoking and it's hurrah, right, but what do you? What do you think is the role of cannabis in, like, our modern world?
Speaker 2:Wow. I mean, I think that depends on where in the world you are. You know, I think that our role in California has been a trendsetter to de-stigmatize cannabis, to show it as a normal part of a healthy lifestyle, to explore its use in popular culture, to celebrate it in music and art and to really lead the way in its development as a viable institution and a huge opportunity as a product of commerce. I mean, you know, california really is the birthplace of the cannabis movement. Although it didn't originate here, it definitely gained popularity here and you know it's very different in Alabama and much of the United States would be having a different conversation. You know where I grew up, much like you and Utah.
Speaker 2:You know, I still know people that are in jail for possession of cannabis. There's tens of thousands of people across the country that are in jail for only possession of cannabis. And you know, I think it's important when we have these conversations to remember that like there's so much work to do and it is ludicrous that as a society we have criminalized and marginalized so many people because of this plant. I was raised in the Mormon church. Something that God created is, you know, viewed as an evil substance. So you know it's legal there now because you can tax it and regulate it. Nothing changes morality like the ability to make money if you're a government or a religion. But you know, I think that you know we could talk this whole time about what cannabis you know it is in its role, so it's a very dynamic and interesting topic.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, I'm definitely looking more locally, you know, because I feel like a lot of I don't know people I communicate with like we're. It gets really messy when we're talking about United States in general Because it's like you know, united States is so interesting. It's like a bunch of little countries you know within, like we're supposed to all get along, you know with each other, and it's really interesting to me that you know that's the framework. So, like locally, like what have you seen in our community being, you know, being within the cannabis industry, like the changes, the impact that cannabis has been making so far, positive or negative?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I heard it again. I think you can't talk about cannabis and Santa Cruz without talking about WAM. And you know Mike and Valerie Carouse are pioneers in the Medical Cannabis Movement and you know the first medical cannabis cooperative in the country was birthed here in Santa Cruz. They've florished for 30 years providing medical cannabis and fighting the government and breaking the stigmas and the racist ideology and propaganda around cannabis and cannabis use and really helping push forward its use as a legitimate medicine and a viable alternative to pharmaceuticals. This is the birthplace and the catalyst for what has become a worldwide movement of medical cannabis acceptance and use.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think we have a rich and proud history, but we're a community, so there's going to be people that feel very strongly that cannabis has no medical use, that it has no medical value, even in Santa Cruz. And you know, I think that it's important to really understand that with anything that is a psychoactive substance that has the ability to change minds and elevate people's perceptions or to also impair their judgment that there's going to be controversy around it. But you know Santa Cruz and cannabis go hand in hand. You can't have a conversation about cannabis and its geography and cultural impact without mentioning exactly where we are.
Speaker 2:Blue dream, for better or worse, the Coca-Cola of cannabis, birthed in Santa Cruz. You know so there's a lot of you know and, as if you look at it from a regulatory perspective and where we've come, prior to legalization, this was a hotbed for cannabis innovation. It was an industry that was probably one of the largest employers in the county for a number of years. You're not going to see that in any county statistics because most of those employees were paid in cash and were paying taxes, but it was such a driver of the local economy and you saw a lot of small businesses in Boulder Creek and in Felton Flourish. You saw a lot of artists and events and festivals that were fueled with the money that was pumped in from the cannabis economy.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, you know, during the process of the conversation of wanting to get regulated and the county needing to realize that there needed to be regulations, they forced out a lot of these small businesses and small family farms and a lot of these people that were growing cannabis in their backyards as a second job or as a primary source of income or, in most instances, as a supplementary source of income to be able to afford to raise a family and live in Santa Cruz. They got excluded from the ability to continue to be here when regulation hit, and a lot of the largest manufacturers and some of the most prominent brands and cannabis that are still around today were birthed in Santa Cruz. But they left because our regulations didn't provide a space for them to continue to exist as legalization and adult use came about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, as you think, in general it's been more of a positive or more of something that's been a challenge and more obstacles. The legalization of cannabis and the legalization of cannabis, yeah I mean that also is a dynamic question, right?
Speaker 2:No one should be in jail for cannabis period. No matter where you're at, you know people should be able to make decisions on how they walk through life, what they put in their body what they are allowed to experience as it relates to themselves.
Speaker 2:You know Krista mentioned ethneogens, like plants, are medicine. So you know, I think in the aspect of legalization, yeah, in some ways it's been an absolutely huge benefit. I think California is a perfect case study in how not to legalize and regulate cannabis. In a lot of ways it's been an absolute failure. But I think that you know even some of the hurdles that we face as business owners and that the industry is facing in particular right now. Still, it's worth the fight and I think from a perspective of just being able to walk into a dispensary and have access to cannabis that you know is safe, that you know is tested, that's in child proof packaging, that has regulations around it to ensure that we're not making the same failures that we made by allowing the tobacco industry to market kids to children and to try to push their products on children. We've learned those lessons in the regulation of cannabis and so I think in that way it's been a success and a positive thing. I think there's a long way to go.
Speaker 1:So why in California is a good case study for the failures.
Speaker 2:Sure. So you know alcohol prohibition was a mistake. There was a lot of bootleggers that made a lot of money during alcohol prohibition. When the federal government decided that they were going to end prohibition, there was a strategy that didn't involve high taxation, and so, you know, the thinking was is we need the legal market to be able to outcompete the bootlegger market, and so we're going to go after the bootleggers with the full authority and strength of the law, but we're going to allow the legal market to flourish with low tariffs and low taxes. And it worked.
Speaker 2:California took a different approach. We have the most robust, entrenched, largest black market for cannabis of anywhere in the world. More cannabis has been produced here than anywhere in the world at any point in human history that we know of Right. So what we did when we legalized is we further lowered the criminal penalties for producing cannabis, meaning that we lowered the incentive for people to participate in the legal market and we significantly increased the taxes and the burdens for all of those companies that were operating in the gray market to move over to the legal market. And so you know, you have two parallel markets in California at the time of legalization.
Speaker 2:I would argue that we have three markets now which we could get into, but the regulated market produces a product that is significantly more expensive to get to the customer than the traditional market. We have to pay testing fees, we have to pay for distributors, there's markups and middlemen's. There's multiple stages along the process, from the time that a product is either harvested and cultivated or manufactured until it gets us the dispensary. At the dispensary we get the great privilege to operate and pay 7% of our gross receipts to the county of Santa Cruz. So if we did a fundraiser together and sold tickets and it went through the dispensary, the county of Santa Cruz gets 7% of that revenue.
Speaker 2:When I sell a t-shirt, they get 7%. When I sell a joint, they get 7%. That doesn't include the 15% excise tax that you, the consumer, pays on top of the product. So when you come into the dispensary and you buy something that's $100, not only are you paying $15 in excise tax, but you're paying 9.25% in sales tax. But, just so you know, the excise tax compounds on the sales tax. So you're also paying excise tax on the sales tax. So, effectively, in most communities that have legalized cannabis, as a consumer, you're paying anywhere from 35% to 45% taxes on top of that. When your buddy Joe has plants in his backyard or has a four-lighter in his garage and sells you that fire, you're not paying taxes.
Speaker 1:How obviously money is a big incentive for legalization in Santa Cruz County and in everything. But how can we change? What are strategies to move forward and to maybe make cannabis more accessible and less taxed?
Speaker 2:Another failure of the regulation in California is that it was based off of local control and so when we were having this conversation that at a statewide level we need to allow for cannabis to move from this quasi-medical realm into an adult-use legal realm, the legal cities and the police chief unions came out in strong opposition to this, and the compromise at the table was essentially that the state's going to allow this, they're going to legalize it, but local jurisdictions get to decide what the rules are and who gets to play. In theory, that seems nice. In concept, it's a major problem because we are now in our sixth year of adult-use cannabis in the state and over 60% of the state doesn't have access to legal cannabis. So in Santa Cruz we feel like it's legal because it is, and it has been for a long time, and we have access to it. But when you go to places primarily inland, away from the coast, they don't even allow for dispensary or delivery services to deliver there and they don't have retail. And some of the more progressive parts of the state that don't allow retail may allow cultivation or manufacturing, but there's nowhere for their constituents to actually legally purchase it, and that's a problem. There are over 8,000 manufacturers and cultivators that are licensed in the state of California. That's a lot. There's about 1,200 dispensaries and delivery services that are licensed right now in the state of California, so a healthy market would be the inverse of that. In 2017, there was over 4,000 dispensaries and delivery services that, as I had a manufacturing company at the time that we could go and legally sell product to, literally overnight that dropped to about 600.
Speaker 2:Here we are, six years later and it's only doubled, and that is primarily because local control. So what we need to do is we need to create some changes at the capital that force municipalities and localities that have decided to ban to at least have some sort of access. There's some bills that are being sponsored right now are working on being sponsored that would essentially kind of force the hand of municipalities to allow for retail. So much like with our building and Rina numbers. If you don't hit your numbers, then the state might be able to circumvent the planning commission and the building department to allow for development. There's a similar conversations about doing that with cannabis retail. That's going to help.
Speaker 2:Another part is that the state needs to be honest with itself and realize that this market is imploding and is going to continue to implode unless they lower taxes, and the Department of Cannabis Control, after six years, decided to finally have some transparency for us in the state and dashboards. And for the last six years, we've said oh, the California market is a six to eight billion dollar market, and what we found out in the last couple of weeks by looking at this data from the Department of Cannabis Control is that it's significantly less than that. It's a five billion dollar market, and it was less last year than the year prior, and it's on track to do even less this year. And so why is that? How is it that we have this robust market that is the largest in the world that's contracting and shrinking? And I get back to the fact that we have three parallel markets right now. There's the traditional market, which never went away. It disappeared in some areas, it shrunk in some areas, like Santa Cruz. It's definitely less prevalent than it was, but it's still here. And then we have this third market that happened to pop up in 2018. And that is the psychoactive hemp market.
Speaker 2:So when the DEA looked at the federal farm bill, they inadvertently added some clarification to what is allowed for hemp, and hemp focuses on Delta 9THC, which is the psychoactive component of cannabis. It's the primary chemical constituent that gets you high. However, it has a precursor. That precursor is known as THCA, and so, while Delta 9 is not allowed in excess of 0.3% in hemp, they didn't make a classification for THCA. So what we've found now is that, when the federal farm bill passed, there's this new quasi-legal gray area for THCA.
Speaker 2:When you come into our dispensary and you buy weed in flower form, it's going to be 1% more or less Delta 9.
Speaker 2:And it's going to be anywhere from 15% to 30% THCA. So what the hemp market's done now is they've found labs to test weed at this 0.3% threshold, but they're selling the same stuff that we sell in our dispensary, in gas stations and head shops. You can buy it online. These online dealers now ship to 46 states. Guess what? They're not paying excise tax, they're not paying sales tax, they're not subject to heavy licensing fees like we have to pay to the state or to the localities. And unfortunately, although it's a very similar product, it's also not tested. It's not held up to regulations, it doesn't have any child proof packaging or protocols like that. But any of you that are on Instagram or social media I'm sure that you haven't seen an ad from a dispensary or a licensed cannabis company, because we're precluded from advertising on those platforms, but most likely you've seen an ad for hemp or moodcom or Delta 9 gummies, and it's prevalent now, and so that's why the legal market's contracting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, what a crazy. Yeah, exactly with a lot to face in this. You're trying to do everything right, and I think the first time I heard about your work was with Treehouse, and I remember my first time being involved in Treehouse, being really deep in the arts community, being like, wow, like this dispensary has art shows and they have a concert, my buddy's playing there, what is? I've never heard of that and so I want to ask you about that as well. The THCA thing I'm going to bring up a little bit later because I think it's relevant for another part but what inspired you to have so much community engagement in a dispensary? Was it purely marketing or like? I mean, like there's like so many you have like a community engagement officer even, or you know, I've just I haven't seen that before and so I'm just curious, like what inspired that?
Speaker 2:You can talk about fun stuff, yeah right.
Speaker 1:A little transition there.
Speaker 2:You know, I am really lucky to have been able to work with really amazing people, and a lot of them are actually right here.
Speaker 1:So thanks for coming.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think that I was raised to believe that we need to make a difference in the lives of those around us. And you know, I have always had a really firm belief that businesses should be a vehicle for positive change in the communities in which they operate and that they have a responsibility to not just have a one-sided transactional approach. And I was raised to root for the underdog my dad. From a very young age whether it's someone in my neighborhood who kind of everyone like ostracized, he would encourage me to go and make friends with anytime. Any Cinderella story and college sports made it to the final four, the sweet 16, we were on the television just rooting our faces off even though we'd never heard of them before.
Speaker 2:I think that that spirit's always carried with me and I really believe in cannabis. I think that part of it is that I've been able to make a living and create really beautiful businesses and communities around this thing that was always ostracized, as I was told it was really wrong. I felt that through being able to work so hard in Santa Cruz to get it legal and to get it to be to a place where it was legitimate and treated like other businesses was a very big privilege and through that process what we found is that we wanted to also take care of people. The reason why I got into retail cannabis retail was primarily inspired by WAMP.
Speaker 2:As a cultivator, I'd go to dispensaries and you're in there trying to sell your product. So you're sitting in the waiting room waiting for some buyer to come and do everything they can to tell you that all your hard work's not worth as much as you thought it was, because that's their job. But as you're in there you see people come that are shopping and that have legitimate medical needs. One pattern that kept happening is that here people come in and ask about compassion programs and medical cannabis and unanimously dispensaries would say go visit WAMP, go visit WAMP.
Speaker 2:I said well, what is this WAMP? So I did some research and I got to meet Mike and Valerie Corral and I found that there was this amazing cooperative of people and patients that group medicine and they distributed amongst themselves and took care of each other. As I got to experience more of that community, I realized that there was a need for that service and that they were unable to provide medicine for as many people that needed it. So when we first opened our first dispensary in Santa Cruz, the whole goal and the intention was to give away as much free cannabis as possible. I had a farm at the time. I was able to generate income through cultivation, so we ran the dispensary as close to a non-profit and a break even as we could and gave away as much free cannabis as we could. One of the things that I'm the most proud of that I've ever done in business is that from 2015 to 2017, we gave away almost $3.5 million of medical cannabis through our compassion program. Thank you, yeah, I mean it's a beautiful thing, it really is and we impacted and helped a lot of people. And that ended with regulation because all of the sudden, every bit of that cannabis is taxed. You're not given anything away without giving the government their piece.
Speaker 2:And so we opened Treehouse and we wanted to shift our vision in a way that met the new regulations in the new world and the new reality and still was in line with the investor that we had to raise money from to get the doors open. And we wanted to do something that was focused on the community and focused on social justice and took care of and provided a space for people that maybe didn't have a space or as much of a voice in Santa Cruz as we wanted. And so art is such a powerful vehicle for change and has the ability to allow people to process trauma and emotion in a way that is collective and in a way that can be highly political or a way that can be not political at all. And we had this beautiful space, and so that was the first step. Is well, let's utilize this for art and let's bring the community in and let's showcase different artists in the community.
Speaker 2:And then, through the work and inspiration of Emily, who's sitting back there, we started focusing on social justice and we started bringing more people into the community and inviting in local artists and artisans and having events, and through the work of Jenna, who's sitting right there, it's actually really grown and florist and bloomed, because I think the beautiful part of the people that you work with is you have an idea and a vision and they take it on and it becomes a collective and shared vision.
Speaker 2:It becomes greater than it could ever be when it's yours alone and I think, particularly as he speaks to Treehouse, she's going to hate me for this, but Jenna has been such a huge vehicle and a voice in actually allowing us to utilize our privilege in a way that benefits the community at large and she's built off the work that Emily's done and has been a huge catalyst for a lot of the work around social justice and working with the Last Prisoner Project and finding the Floorette Coalition, which is a coalition that invests in BIPOC owned businesses that are doing good in their communities and raising money for that, and reaching out to other local nonprofits like the Black Surf Club or Fours of Latinx or Second Harvest Food Bank, and crafted our Sowing the Seeds for Change program, where we raise money with a different local nonprofit. And that's who we are, it's our passion, it's what we do, because this is the community in which we live and what feels good, and we started the conversation talking about cannabis. It sucks to be in the cannabis industry right now.
Speaker 2:I don't have a single colleague that is stoked that is doing this, and I have a lot of friends that have moved on, that have invested years of their life because it's just untenable, Like it is hard. We're in an incredibly fortunate position to be able to continue to do this and to try to grow and expand and to carry forth our vision. But what gets me out of bed in the morning and provides like a passion and a drive is the people I get to work with and the things that we do that don't involve, that have nothing to do with cannabis. Kyle, my partner, Kyle, is back there and we were talking about this today is just, you know, thank God that there's something that we can focus on other than making money, because it wouldn't be fun, and you know, I think that building the community and trying to do cool things and you know, this project on the West side.
Speaker 2:Our intention, although it's been incredibly challenging and we may or may not get into tonight, was to figure out a way to help and support WAM, Because WAM, you know Val's not a business person and she's, you know, I'd go so far to say she's an unapologetic anti-capitalist and she doesn't want to deal with running a business. That's never what she's done, what she's wanted to deal with is helping people that are sick and dying, and she's absolutely amazing at that. And you know our goal we've been talking to WAM for three years was to figure out how we could allow them to work together, to leverage our collective strengths so we could carry on their mission of service. And you know, whether we get this dispenser on the West side open or not, we've been successful in that goal to a point right. There's still a lot of work to do and there's a lot of efforts that need to be made to get to where we want to be. But you know their compassion program is alive and well. We're taking care of.
Speaker 2:77 WAM members a week are getting free medical cannabis at Treehouse. You know our goal is to get that up to 200 by the end of the year, with pickup points in Watsonville and in Santa Cruz. And you know I think it's important to remember like that in and of itself is important to be able to have multiple points of access, because a lot of WAM members can't move around easily. They're in wheelchairs, they, you know they have to get special accommodations and special help to be able to even show up to Treehouse. It's incredibly challenging for them to get off, get away from the West side or South County if they live there, and so you know our goal is to make that as easy as an experience for them as we can and to facilitate as much of a catered medical cannabis experience in the products that we give and that we curate for them so it actually meets their needs Right.
Speaker 1:So the West side location and just to be clear, that's the old Emily's spot Right, and you know, you've been like, you know, even recently you've gotten some pushback about that space because of its proximity to schools and, potentially, what is it corrupting the youth by existing? What do you think about all the opposition to the opening of dispensary? Love you, man.
Speaker 2:Oh man, we're to start social media. That's a clear theme.
Speaker 2:Cannabis in our community has always been contentious. About eight years ago, when we were working with the county to regulate cannabis and provide an ordinance that allowed a pathway to compliant operations, there was groups that were strongly opposed to it and you know community prevention partners in particular, and one of the things that was very interesting about that process is we got together as opposing viewpoints and we sat around the table and we had conversations and we got to find commonality and common cause and we also respected that we weren't going to agree on everything and community prevention partners did something pretty progressive for an organization that you wouldn't consider to be so and they invited cannabis industry people to join the group and many of us did, including myself and Val Corral Colin Disherin from Santa Cruz Naturals, and we met with them every month for years and we helped shape and inform policy in Santa Cruz and they educated us in the industry as to what some parents and community members and schools and educators were facing as it related to substance use amongst youth, and we educated them on all things cannabis and the dynamics that play in the state and what we have to go through and the safeguards that we take to ensure that our products aren't getting into the hands of people that shouldn't. And you know we created some pretty cool campaigns a poly substance impaired driving campaign, which got a grant from the Department of Office and Traffic Safety that you know, aimed to inform Santa Cruz residents of the hazards of combining intoxicants while driving. We created a talk it up, lock it up campaign which educated, you know, thousands of people throughout the county on the importance of securing your psychoactive goods and your cannabis and your alcohol in the home. You know most people aren't aware that. Well, maybe some are. You know children most likely are going to get products in the home, right? So they get alcohol in the home, they find prescription drugs, and so the best thing you can do if you have children in the home is to secure your products away from children. So you know we've sold lock boxes at cost at Treehouse for since we open, to ensure that our customers had the ability to secure these substances, and so, anyway I just say this because it's a different time now. So you know that time was contentious, but people were willing to talk to each other.
Speaker 2:I never thought in my wildest dreams when we secured Emily's as a location that we would be dealing with the community opposition that we're dealing with right now. You know, it is wild. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone sometimes and it's very hurtful and I really think that it's because we live in an age of post-truth now and you know, like Krista said, neither one of us are really on social media. I hopped on next door because people were talking about my business and the location and I've dived down that rabbit hole and can't wait until I can unplug again Because you know, I've had things said about me that I would never dream to say to somebody I don't know.
Speaker 2:And you know, through this process I've realized that, despite how much we feel like cannabis is normalized in our society and how open-minded everybody is, despite the fact that the majority of California and the majority of people in Santa Cruz have voted to legalize it, despite the fact that pretty much anyone that has a working brain knows that it shouldn't be a Schedule 1, because a Schedule 1 means that it has no medical value and is highly addictive Despite all of that, there's still a lot of people that live in fear and don't want it in the community. And you know, unlike eight years ago, those people don't want to talk to me. So you know I can reach out to the PTA of Mission Hill and Santa Cruz High School and, you know, offer to sit down with them and address their concerns and have conversations. But unless they're willing to meet me and have a conversation, we don't get that opportunity and I think that's primarily what's missing right now. And it's a little interesting the timing of our conversation today because, we had to postpone this, as you are all aware.
Speaker 2:But you know, last night the Santa Cruz City School District unanimously voted and created a resolution against our dispensary at Emilees on Mission Street and the school superintendent, who we attempted to meet with in September and she didn't show up to the meeting, but her staff did and we had a productive meeting and you know we changed some things as a course of that meeting, which is why you meet with the opposition, so you can understand where they're coming from. You know we created a website that talks about harm reduction, that provides resources for community members whose kids are dealing with substance use, that provides tools and resources to how to talk to teenagers about cannabis, among some other things. You know that website and the time and efforts that we spend in that, which is safecannabisnet, came directly as a result of that conversation. We changed part of our operating plan for Emilees Bakery as a result of that conversation to ensure, because of their concerns, that there'd be no cannabis able to be seen from any public right away. So if any of you have driven down Ocean Street, you know when you pass Reefside and kind people, as you look in, you can see cannabis products. Right, that won't. That will not be the case at Emilees on Mission Street because of concerns that the school board, you know, brought up. But despite those concerns, they don't want us there.
Speaker 2:And it's very apparent, and you know there's there's this false assumption that just a dispensary being on Mission Street is going to influence students to use cannabis. They acknowledge that students aren't getting cannabis from dispensaries. You know there's never been a single instance, as confirmed by the Santa Cruz Police Department or the Cannabis Licensing Office, of any dispensary in the county transacting an unauthorized cell. Kids aren't getting it from the dispensaries. You can, as we talked about earlier, you can order it online and get it shipped to your house. If it's psychoactive hemp, which is just as intoxicating, you can get it on Snapchat. You can get it from friends. It's much easier, you know you're not even getting into a dispensary without valid ID, you know. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's it's pretty wild.
Speaker 1:I mean, even the, the superintendent of schools, like just blatant refused to meet with you. You know, like I think that the yeah, I think that.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, I'm looking at. I'm looking at Kyle, but you know we sent her a follow up after she was. She had a family emergency and all fairness and wasn't able to attend our meeting. But we met with her staff and I sent her a follow up and said you know, I'd really like the opportunity to meet with you and I think the I'm in a paraphrase and looking at Kyle is I do this, but you know, I think the attitude was you know, we've said all. We've voiced our concerns and our issues. There's nothing that you could possibly say that's going to make me change my mind. And in the event that you are able to open, you know we'll sit down and have a conversation as to how we can mitigate the risks of your operations.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker 1:It just amazes me how this is still, this is still going on and this idea of like fearing, like I mean the campaign is like protect our youth, right, and I don't know. It just seems ridiculous that we're still in this place where fear they're ignoring the facts, are ignoring a lot of the studies that say that, you know, having a cannabis or a dispensary would actually provide safer access to cannabis. Like, how do you, how do you move forward with that?
Speaker 2:I get by with a little help from my friends, the patients, of my coworkers, my resolute optimism that you know we're doing the right thing for the community. We have an infallible record. We've never received a citation or a violation for any issues. You know, despite the hateful things and the lies and the misleading comments and this petition that is just ripe with falsities to stir people up, I will still sit down with these people and have a conversation and figure out how we can help mitigate some of their concerns. You know, I think, the fact that we don't need a variance. This location was determined by the city of Santa Cruz to be in the cannabis zoning ordinance. We went and met with principal planners to ensure that there weren't any issues. We got the go ahead, no variance needed. You guys are good, we don't see any issues or challenges. We then went and, you know, purchased the business. It wasn't available for lease. We had to buy Emily's bakery and you know that and of itself was quite a process. But you know I'm although this is turned political, I really believe that you know our elected officials will do the right thing. They created the rules. We're just following the rules that were put in place. We're not asking for any exceptions. We don't need any special considerations. We just need them to use the same process and treat us in the same way that they've treated the other four dispensaries that are operating in the county. And you know, if you compare our operations to the general plan, there are so many things in the general plan that are consistent with our business operations that the county has agreed that they're going to prioritize and that are key initiatives for our community. We were the very first green business, green cannabis business, to ever join the green business and Santa Cruz and Monterey initiative. All of the dispensaries are certified green businesses. We are the first Envirocan and Enviro and the first Envirocan certified dispensary which focuses on sustainable operations and how we source our products and who we source our products from.
Speaker 2:You know, as, as we've talked about, we are consistently and actively raising money for the community and doing, you know, drives for, for schools and for local organizations.
Speaker 2:We are working with WAM. I mean WAM is our partner for you know, as long as we have a dispensary, we're going to help prop up that organization and work to continue their legacy and the work that they've done, and we have already been very successful in that in the last year since we have reached an agreement and you know we are raising money through all of the hook locations for the Alliance for Compassionate Access, which is their nonprofit, which focuses on providing support and services for people in hospice and end of life care. We launched that program in late October and have raised over $7,500 to as of February for that program. Like I said, we've we've taken over their compassion program and are continuing to grow that and you know we'll continue to fight with them to take care of some of the most marginalized members of the community. You know I think that opening Emily's is paramount to that mission because it provides us with resources to continue that work.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, all right. So to end this off, I just kind of want to hear, just like your vision, for you know your own dispensaries, or your work, the work you do in the community. Like what do you? What's your vision for the future? You know the of all the beautiful things you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you know my vision is that we iron out some issues with regulation that you know I've always said for many years I want to get treated like any other business. And although we are a business right now, we're not treated like any other business. And you know, I would really love to be able to continue to work on the benefits and the compensation and the incentives for everyone in the family of our company that work so hard and be able to spread that more equitably across the organization. But in order to do that, I need the government to take a little bit less. And you know, although we do strive to provide living wages and we provide benefits and we do all of these things for our employees, it's not enough and it can't be enough until we actually are able to not be subject to extortion. You know we talked a little bit about some of the taxation. But you know, with federal taxation policies, you know our effective federal tax rate is about 40% and then we're paying the state 10% on top of that. So you know if we're compliant in how we do our taxes, you know we're close to 45%. There's been a couple of years at Treehouse where we've actually owed the federal government. This doesn't include anything that we've paid to the county, but we've owed the federal government more money than we've made. This year we paid the county of Santa Cruz significantly more money than we made at Treehouse, and it's not okay, you know, and it's you know. So that I mean my vision is that there's still work to be done.
Speaker 2:My vision is that more cities and municipalities across the state open and allow for access to cannabis. You know, my vision for the future is that we continue to work with organizations like the Last Prisoner Project and that you know we bolster and support the work they do to make sure that in five years there's not a single American that's in gel for weed. That is absolutely paramount, and anyone that is in cannabis needs to be fighting for that because there's we can't be comfortable in this industry until that's changed across the board for everybody in the country. But you know, aside from that, my vision is that we're we're rolling with wham, that we are. You know, we're one of the only locally owned businesses, cannabis businesses, left in the county and I would like to continue to be that way and to continue to provide, you know, medicine at prices that give people an alternative to the black market.
Speaker 2:The whole mission of the hook is to provide safe and affordable cannabis and access to all, and you know we work really hard to keep our prices low and to try to attract customers and consumers that normally wouldn't participate in the little legal market and to provide them with an option that's safe, tested, regulated and contributes to the local economy. You know our mission at Treehouse is a little bit different. You know our prices are great, our service is great, but we have a very highly educated staff and we're really focused on community building and community work. And you know, I think both of those missions can work off of each other and operate in parallel and continue to thrive.
Speaker 1:I love that man. Yeah, thank you. So we have room for a few questions. If anyone has any questions, you can just raise your hand. If not, we'll close it out. Yes, well, I just want to hear again that the clarity of the new location is within the allotted space that you're coming in. That's the sense of the whole space away from the school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I think you know one thing that's come up a lot on Nextdoor is why don't you just move, find another location? Why does it have to be there? Why did you choose to be next to a school, right? And you know, kyle and I searched very diligently for five months to find the location that we have. We actually found a location on River Street that the landlord was willing to owner finance it to us and we were looking into taking out second mortgages on our home so we could afford to to pay it the down payment on that. But it fell through.
Speaker 2:And I think what people don't realize is the opportunity for us with the zoning and setback requirements in the county is incredibly limited. When you look at the zoning map, it's a sea of red with a couple little islands in it, and those islands are where we could be. But that's in a perfect world. Most places weren't available and even if we found a place that met that criteria, as long as the owner has a bank loan on it, they won't rent to us because there's a stipulation of their loan with those banks. They can't rent to cannabis companies. So we have to find a location that the owner owns it outright and is willing to rent to a cannabis company. So that map, that's already small, becomes infinitely smaller. And so you know, emily's Bakery was the fourth location that we identified. It was the third location that we had more or less put an offer in on. And so you know, and we did that after confirming that it meant all requisite criteria.
Speaker 2:So you know, there was a lengthy public process to determine what setback should be from schools and sensitive use areas. It involved multiple meetings with the Planning Commission and the city council several years ago and they determined that it was 600 feet. 600 feet is consistent with the County of Santa Cruz. The city is of Watsonville, the city of Santa Cruz, the city of Seaside, pacifica, the unincorporated area, the unincorporated county of Monterey, you know, and the state that is the by and large determined to be an appropriate distance from schools. Our location is 680 feet away from Santa Cruz High. It's 1,871 feet away from Path of Travel. So you know, if there was an actual issue with dispensary being that close to schools, I am sure that the administration of Kirby High School and the Santa Cruz County Office of Health and Education would have brought this up prior to now, because they are the exact same distance from Canakruz that we are from Santa Cruz High.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, santa Cruz Naturals in Aptos is 100 feet further away from Aptos Middle School than we are from Santa Cruz High. You know, and it's just, it's ludicrous to think that kids are so impressionable that walking past a dispensary that's not advertising cells on the outside, that's gonna have one monument sign with the logo and a green cross, is gonna be the difference between them choosing to consume cannabis or not, especially when there's a restaurant across the street that has mescal in the window and alcohol signs on it. There's a taqueria down the street that advertises Budweiser and Pacifico and Modelo and neon signs. There is a Thai restaurant across the street that you can get Sapporo in. You know, I mean, the mission street is ripe with alcohol establishments that kids are actually allowed into. They're not allowed into our dispensary.
Speaker 2:There's two cigar shops on Mission Street that sell psychoactive hemp products, so you can walk in there. I could walk in there, ask for 120 milligram Delta nine gummies, which are more potent than I can sell at the dispensary, and I'm not gonna get ID'd unless I try to use my credit card. So yeah, sorry, long answer to a short question.
Speaker 1:Yes, Thank you for the question. Thank you For farmers that are trying to make a living from farming challenges. You talk about the different markets, but you know that as you went up, how can we support and what's the vision in terms of family staying viable? You were talking about the buy-up of larger stable. So how do families stay with farmers, the ones that are still around? You've got to find out how do they stay? What's the reality for them? The ones that are trying to grow?
Speaker 2:the right way and the markets. Yeah, I mean, it's exceptionally hard and I think the answer is more retail. Like I said, when you have more than 8,000 manufacturing and cultivation companies for just over 1,000 retailers, there's gonna be a lot of pain points, and the state really needs to figure this one out. There just needs to be more access to legal retail cannabis. It solves a lot of problems. It competes with the black market. It helps alleviate a lot of the issues in the downstream supply chain by providing them more access and more opportunity, maybe eliminating some of the onerous testing requirements and providing a pathway for direct to consumer.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that for small farms, having the opportunity to sell their products online is potentially although, is that an option for Canada? No, like veggies, you're like, yeah, sure, I'll buy it. You're like here, for my veggies, I can't buy it. No, you can't do that. And I think that if you're a small-scale hemp farmer, you can right now, which is Ludacris, but if you're a California cannabis farmer, you have to sell to a distributor. So, yeah, I mean, I think that the solution and the answer is more retail.
Speaker 1:All right, we have one more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I hope this doesn't put you on the spot. That's why we're here. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Emily, for years and years, for years and years, for years and years before there has been a bubble here.
Speaker 2:She sold it to you. She knew what you were doing. What is your? How is she responding? Oh, emily's been great, I mean. I think that she's responding by relaxing. She read she you know we weren't her only suitor. When we approached her, her they decided to sell. So we got to work with a really great broker and there was a couple other companies that made offers and I think that you know she went with us, probably not because we offered them the most money or we were the most resourced. I think she went with us because she believed in the vision of WAM. She really respects and cares about Val and I think that she really appreciated Kyle and I and you know we gave her and Robert the amazing opportunity of running the business, shutting it down and literally walking away. So when we got that business, we got 42 years of love and dirt and grime and flour and fridges half full of things that they didn't sell before they left.
Speaker 2:I mean they I joke, I'm not joking Like it literally was. They were open on July 27th and they closed and walked away and threw us the keys. And on July 28th we got a bakery and you know. So we've spent a lot of time giving it some love and care and cleaning and yeah, I mean I think Emily's you know she's in support. I wouldn't be surprised if she shows up to the planning commission meeting to speak on our behalf and she knows all the things and sandwiches. Yeah, I mean I would imagine that she's aware of the situation and she's been nothing but gracious and lovely, but at the end of the day too, I also hope that she's enjoying her retirement.
Speaker 2:She's actually still slinging houses. So if any of you guys need a good realtor, shout out to Emily, give her a call. Yeah, I would imagine she is, but it's also you have to remember that her and her partner worked opposite schedules for many, many years, so he was graveyard doing the baking, she was running the business during the day. So I think they're probably, you know, getting reacquainted in their love and spending time together, so which, which you know, maybe more important than us getting a dispensary open. So, all right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so glad you asked that, that's a great question.
Speaker 2:So we go before the Planning Commission next Thursday at 10am. If any of you have anything better to do on a Thursday and you want to come, you get two minutes to voice your support. Visit us, come shop at our locations. You know we have a location in Capitola, one in Watsonville and one in SoCal. Come to our events. A tree house does events twice a month a THCA day and first Friday.
Speaker 2:But you know also, you know, barring that the easiest and simplest thing to do is go to our website, the hookoutletcom. We have a template email that you can click with one click and you know, if you live in Santa Cruz, then there's also a link to find out what district you're in, to include in that email but it literally takes about 30 seconds and send in a letter of support. For those of you that are in the audience, there's actually a QR code you can scan on your phone and it takes you right there. This is before next Thursday, yeah, but you know, for I don't know when the podcast will get released, but you know it's likely that the letter campaign, the letter writing campaign, it'll be going until April when we go before the city council, which I don't know what date that will be? I imagine. Just knowing our luck, it'll probably be on 420. They'll schedule it on our busiest day of the year just to mess with us, apart for the course of this adventure.
Speaker 1:It's a Saturday, okay, go to work.
Speaker 2:We're good, yeah, so same thing. If you scan that QR code or you go to our website and you join our newsletter, put in your email, we'll be able to communicate with you. If you're curious more about the project or who we are, who WAM is, or how we're protecting the youth and children, or what security measures we're going to take, or why we picked that location, we have a very extensive FAQ page there too, so it will answer all of your questions, and if it doesn't, then please shoot me an email with more, because I'm happy to populate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, bryce, for coming on and talking about this very important subject. And you know, hopefully real change will happen and we need community help. I mean, no change happens without people. You know like we are, you know Bryce is one person, you know I'm one person, but collectively we can make change happen. You know, I've seen it and I know it's possible. So you all leave with that message and start you help us out. Yeah.