Kelowna pot shop gets green light on History
REALITY TV: Bud Empire goes behind the scenes at dispensary
Bob Kay says now is the time for the cannabis industry to shake off its suspicious stigma and show the public that selling weed is legitimate work.
To do that, the father of four has put himself and his pot-dispensary business front and centre in the new seven-part reality TV series Bud Empire, premiering on the History channel June 5 at 10 p.m.
“Hopefully (viewers) will take away the fact that, ‘Wow, this is an actual business and actual industry that people are using,’ ” Kay says.
Kay has been in the marijuana industry for close to 10 years. His compassionate-care dispensary BeKind Okanagan Growers and Compassion Club is located in downtown Kelowna.
With legalization likely just days away (the Senate votes on Bill C-45 on June 7) Corus Entertainment, the broadcaster behind the show, saw the writing on the wall and the amount of conversation the cannabis industry was generating.
“We were drawn to the show immediately. With cannabis in the Canadian news daily and poised to become legal, we thought this was a timely history-in-the-making concept,” said Lisa Godfrey, vice-president of original content and original scripted programming at Corus. “We were drawn to the characters and how they’re making their way in what is becoming a big business. We feel this is a standout series for History that’s a little left of centre and would be a topical hit for the schedule.”
Narrated by Canadian comic Will Sasso, the 30-minute episodes follow the daily world of the pot dispensary. You see how product is grown, procured and promoted and you see how politics play out.
You also see customers from the
longtime weed lovers to the newbies who are looking to cannabis for medicinal purposes. It is the latter that Kay says his business is based on.
“It’s not just about smoking weed and getting high. It’s access to safe consumption for individuals who may want to use it recreationally or for medicinal purposes. That’s why we do it. People that are using cannabis as medicine are just regular people. Cancer doesn’t discriminate,” says Kay, emphasizing the compassion component of his business.
Kay hopes the show will answer questions and also remove the criminal shade cast on cannabis.
“They can come in and talk to us
and now they won’t be afraid,” says Kay. “One of the things we see is when people come in for the first time, they’re nervous. They’re afraid they don’t know the questions to ask.”
Kay, who says he enjoys a “fine marijuana cigarette,” began his relationship with pot when he was a teenager.
“I smoked my first joint and fell in love with it and I thought, ‘OK, where is this going to take me?’” says Kay. “You know, you start to grow up. You start to think about different occupations and different careers and your path goes different ways and in the end I wanted to come back to cannabis in a capacity that supported people with can-
cer. That’s how I got back into it. I have relatives who have cancer, some critically ill. It was a ways and means for them to have access without being subjected to other drugs, other black-market drugs.”
With the industry on the cusp of change, there are lots of questions that should soon be answered.
When legalization goes through, business will change. Small players like Kay will be faced with corporations now locked and legally loaded and ready rake in the pot.
Kay says later in the series viewers will see how he and his business plan on weathering the corporate onslaught.
But in the meantime, he has a simple plan of action for when pot goes
straight.
“Someone said to me, ‘Hey, what are you going to do when legalization happens?’ I said, ‘I think I am going to go home and sleep for one whole day.’
“In our industry, we get it from everybody. We get it from the public. We get it from the police. We get it from the city. We get it from regular individuals. We get it from religious groups. It’s cannabis and there is a stigma attached to it. You know what I do? I open up my doors everyday and you never know what is going to come in, so at one point I just want to go home and sleep for a day and not answer the door.”
“People that are using cannabis as medicine are just regular people. Cancer doesn’t discriminate.” — Bob Kay