Pot shop nips doubts in the bud to win approval
The lone marijuana dispensary in the greater Carmel area wears its local identity on the walls. An image of the South Coast’s landmark Bixby Bridge nearly fills one side of the room, and a heavy steel sign announces the establishment: Big Sur Canna+Botanicals.
With big rectangles of contemporary art in the windows (and a half dozen more around the interior), redwood paneling, loungy tan leather couches and a few leafy plants, it’s easy to see why visitors confuse the dispensary with the ubiquitous galleries and boutiques that dominate Carmel.
“We are a reflection of Carmel and all its art galleries,” says co-owner Aram Stoney, who crafted the slab top of the check-in desk from a sizable chunk of bay laurel. “We wanted natural colors and wood, local photographs and local artists.”
In an increasingly saturated sector dominated by big investors and opportunistic outsiders, Canna+Botanicals mirrors the community in another meaningful way: Its mom-andpop owners are longtime locals.
“I always say since we’re from the area, we understand the community in all aspects,” says Stoney, who was born and raised on the Monterey Peninsula.
In some ways, however, Canna+Botanicals is not reflective of Carmel. The tiny town’s City Council voted in the fall — for the second time — to extend a moratorium on all marijuana dispensaries, deliveries and outdoor cultivation. The 2,100-square-foot Big Sur Canna+Botanicals narrowly skirts the rule — it’s located just beyond Carmel’s city border in unincorporated territory east of the city, in the Carmel Rancho Shopping Center.
But Stoney and co-owner John DeFloria still had to navigate a coun-
tywide moratorium on cannabis business licenses that the Board of Supervisors approved in 2015. DeFloria and Stoney started by demonstrating that their already established medicinal delivery business had all the proper sales permits and that they’d paid their taxes. Weeks later, they earned an exemption from the ban.
That didn’t allow for a storefront, though. Fortunately for Big Sur Canna+Botanicals, the legal climate changed when voters passed Measure Y in 2016, which imposes taxes on cannabis growers and sellers. The day after results of the vote were confirmed (Dec. 7), a new county ordinance went into effect allowing for a limited number of cannabis businesses. DeFloria was at the county offices at 5 a.m. (they open at 8 a.m.) to make sure Canna+Botanicals was unquestionably first in line for a business license.
There were obstacles other than bureaucracy (which, on top of the business license, included a use permit and a business permit). The biggest hurdle: a city and populace not exactly enthusiastic to see them.
At a series of open-house events, they were confronted with a variety of fears: Visitors spoke of friends and family members with drug-abuse problems and predicted their presence would change the character of the area.
“People wondered, ‘Are there going to be people with dreadlocks playing hacky sack and Frisbee and walking pit bulls on chains?’ ” DeFloria says. “People were scared. But they saw how sincere we are and the clientele we serve.” (Plus, they signed a nonuisance clause in their lease agreement.)
“It totally feels like a gallery,” says one cancer-surviving customer who requested anonymity. “It’s a very comforting place, and they’re all really knowledgeable. That breaks the stigma that still exists. You don’t feel like you’re doing anything wrong. If they didn’t care about the aesthetics, that might be different.”
Stoney and DeFloria first noticed the lack of native pot entrepreneurs when they began their Carmel Valleybased delivery service for medicinal marijuana. “We were thinking, ‘This isn’t cool, we need to have local representation,’ ” Stoney says.
Less than four years later, the pair made local history by opening on Jan. 5, four days after legal sales for recreational use began in California. (The company started medicinal marijuana sales in October.) A long line formed and, after just three hours of business in 2018, the shop matched the number of customers from a full day doing medicinal business.
The bright and clean retail counter presents a long stash of diverse products — cannabis-infused ginger bites, tinctures, salves, candies, drinks and even new chewing-tobacco-like Cannadips. About 30 glass jars of boutique buds occupy shelves. Most striking, though, is the amount of enthusiastic explaining the sales reps are doing.
Education is a fundamental for the company, Stoney says, as the new law allows often inexperienced tourists to walk in and purchase cannabis.
“We get so many people from out of state and out of town that being able to expand our services to a worldwide market in the location we’re in is pretty fulfilling.”
That helps inspire the big investment they make in educating staff and customers, which includes one-onone conferences with longtime cannabis consultant Lori Wright on Thursdays and Sundays.
“We want to allow visitors to enhance a concert or a walk on Carmel Beach,” Stoney says. “But we want to make sure you do it safely.”