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Year In Review and the Road Ahead
YEAR IN REVIEW
and the Road Ahead
When the state’s first legal, adult use marijuana dispensaries opened back in November 2018, the challenge was managing the long lines.
Now, after three years of legal operation and five years after voters approved a referendum legalizing cannabis for recreational use, the challenge is more about standing out in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
Marijuana, the state Cannabis Control Commission said earlier in 2021, is a $1 billion-a-year business in Massachusetts.
Packaging is important, said Matt Yee, CEO of Enlite Cannabis Dispensary, last month when he opened Enlite’s first location. The store, once Webster’s Fishhook restaurant, at 391 Damon Road, appealed to him because of its convenient location, another factor that didn’t enter into the calculation three years ago.
But Yee, part of the restaurant-running Yee family, said location, customer service, marketing, packaging, all matter now that marijuana business in Massachusetts has matured.
Competitor 253 Farmacy in the Turners Falls section of Montague even touts kosher products, marijuana made under the supervision of a Texas rabbi who’s made a national name for himself accepting the industry.
Enlite is Northampton’s eighth marijuana dispensary. The first, NETA, opened across town in 2018 and remains open today.
Earlier in 2021, the state Cannabis Control Commission reported that the state has exceeded 165 marijuana retailers and now has three delivery businesses operating.
Statewide, cumulative sales breached $2 billion in gross sales,
coming less than three years after the first two recreational marijuana stores opened and less than one year since licensees surpassed the $1 billion mark. That $1 billion sales mark was Nov. 3, 2020.
The online job-search site indeed. com listed 739 available jobs in the Massachusetts marijuana industry.
In Springfield, potential marijuana business and city councilors are questioning the city’s procedures for picking licensees after an internal audit revealed errors during the review process. And marijuana retailers in Western Massachusetts can expect competition from outside the state in the coming months. Both New York and Connecticut have legalized although stores are not yet open in those states.
Connecticut has also passed state law allowing for recreational marijuana. In December, the town Council in Enfield — just over the state line from Longmeadow and already a shopping destination for many Springfield-area residents — voted to allow the retail sale of cannabis. The move reversed a ban enacted by a previous council, one ousted in November’s election and replaced with candidates who’d run on repealing the ban.
253 FARMACY PHOTO BY NATE BLAIS
