Arica Viegas, Derek D’Ambrosio, and Taylor Peters
Seeds planted long ago are sprouting, pot shops budding mainly on the Outer Cape; seems like governmental and cultural growing conditions in Provincetown, Wellfleet, and Eastham are more conducive to cannabis, at least this season.
Before telling you about my recent trip – OK, visit – to an early bloomer Cape pot shop, I’ll get the obvious personal question out of the way:
Yes, unlike Bill Clinton’s famous hedge years ago, I inhaled. As a guitar player in college in the 1970s that was a given, and a lot of fun most of the time. For decades, however, I’ve avoided pot. Thirty-odd years ago I started getting paranoid feelings, and from then on the mood-alterer of choice was beer or wine, rum or bourbon. That said, a few years ago I was in Miami with dear friends who fed me a gummy something as we settled onto the beach. At first I didn’t feel anything, disappointed actually, then I realized I had been sitting and staring at the difference between the water’s blue and the sky’s blue for like an hour.
Ahh, the good old days.
So my limited cred in this area derives mainly from smoking stuff from who knows where (probably laced with oregano), multiple breath-holding tugs on a funky joint, a communal pass that maybe as much as the herb created a momentary bond.
That is far from where we are today.
When I pulled into a parking lot in a South Wellfleet hollow off Route 6, at first glance it wasn’t clear where Cape Cod Cannabis was located. That’s in part because when the store opened last April, the town pushed back on displaying a logo that looked like a welcome-to-town highway sign with a big leaf implanted. Last thing the business needed was friction like that, so they opted for a blue whale’s tale instead of a green leaf, at least for now. Plus, every pot store must have opaque windows to avoid public displays. So there is a secretive feel to the facade.
There’s also security. Anytime the store is open someone is outside the door, in essence a bouncer, checking id, confirming appointments, all required by the license. Cape Cod Cannabis also has not one but two security firms, maybe 50 cameras monitoring 24/7; there is no liquor store with this kind of protection, but then again you can’t slip a few thousand dollars of booze into your front pockets, and state control of liquor pales in comparison.
Among other restrictions and requirements, all products are Massachusetts-made (avoids interstate commerce that the feds find illegal). There is agreement that people working will be local, a boon because this one shop reportedly has 21 employees, 16 fulltime.
So says Derek D’Ambrosio, the store’s general manager (the principal owner is in Florida). Derek has been onboard since the beginning, three years “start to finish” to get the doors open in what was the old South Wellfleet General Store. Major permitting, major renovation.
Derek was born in Dorchester, raised in Charlestown. He remembers Boston’s “Blue Laws,” restrictive vestiges of Puritan attitudes, so appreciates how things have changed. He’ll say he’s been selling pot since he was 15 years old and now he’s 43. “I’ve gone from being a potential felon to an essential worker,” he laughs.
Among the people working with Derek are familiar faces; Arica Viegas, who for years greeted everyone coming to the local movie theater with a great smile and warm hello, and Taylor Peters, whose father Bruce is a well-respected commercial fisherman and charter boat captain working out of Chatham. Arica and Taylor are “budtenders” (versus “bartenders”), providing advice, chatting up customers.
Derek walked me around the sales floor, which is open, clean, “straight” — no oversized pillows, bongs, or lava lamps — though walls are adorned with local art that includes a colorful portrait of the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. He figured he’d do with me what he’d do with any new customer, setting me up on a computer tablet to input info:
What was I looking for? In my case I figured I’d say I want to be creative, write, listen to music, dance a bit, but didn’t want to get a big head buzz. Since I don’t smoke anything, probably prefer to keep it that way. The computer collated answers and Derek looked at alternatives.
“I’d suggest tinctures, I say that to a lot of new users,” he said. Slip it under your tongue, 5 milligrams or less, and in 15 minutes or so you’re feeling something. The key is to avoid “the rookie mistake” of thinking nothing is happened so taking a second dose too quickly, at which point it comes together and you’re too high.
Then came a choice between two main types of pot – Sativa, known to increase energy, focus, and creativity, versus Indica, more about relaxation, stress reduction, pain relief. My answers put me in the Sativa camp.
But tinctures are only one of five options. You have flower and buds to smoke. Edibles to eat. Concentrates, also smoked or vaped, just stronger. Topicals rubbed on skin. All deliver active “cannabinoids,” the main two being THC that gets people high, and CBD which doesn’t get you off but helps with stress, pain relief, more a medical profile.
Some products have suggestive names; for example concentrates go by “Tropsbreath,” “Colorado Night Terror,” and “Purple Pineapple Express,” though there are plenty of edibles identified by taste like strawberry, toffee, and kiwi. Gummies seem to be priced around $30, while concentrates and flowers tend to go for double that to usher in multiple highs, depending on how hardcore the user might be. There’s even an infused seltzer drink that seems tailor-made for a backyard cookout.
“And I’m the tester,” Derek smiles.
Weekdays, especially in the morning, he sees customers often in their 60s, reflecting the Cape’s demographic. This isn’t a smoking crowd, more edibles, tinctures, and topicals, CBD as much as THC. The shop is beside the long bike trail from South Dennis, down the road from the famous Beachcomber club on the dunes (same property owners), so there are people making those connections. After 5 pm a younger more THC crowd tends to show; Derek says he might see a couple hundred customers a day, though when I was there it seemed slower.
He professes no concerns about competition, with a third pot shop soon opening in Wellfleet, a new entry in Eastham, four in Provincetown. Even with all the security, restrictions, fiscal hassles given that pot is legal here but not across the nation so he can’t process normal credit cards or conduct typical banking, Derek says there is room and margin for everyone.
“The more the better, we’re all making money,” he says. “And here’s why: You’d be surprised how many people smoke out here.”
Or chew. Or rub. Or drink. But even after the visit, I’m still not one of them.
I hope that doesn’t make me a bad journalist.
PS: I reached out to the other cannabis store now open in the same town, Piping Plover, the natural competitor to Cape Cod Cannabis. The newer entrant did a remarkable job renovating and reviving an old building on Main Street and has deep local roots (so to speak). I tried to include them, but multiple emails and calls resulted in their spokesperson saying they were “too busy” to be interviewed – though I was welcome to stop by and make a purchase.
NEXT: CHARLIE BAKER IS RAISING MONEY WHERE HE NEEDS TO WIN — CAPE COD
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What the world needs now is ....not more pot. I am an old flower child who thankfully outgrew getting wasted. This Dopamine Nation will rue the day cannabis was commercialized.