Boston’s first pot shop an East Coast milestone
BOSTON – Boston’s first pot shop opened Monday, marking the first recreational marijuana store to open in a major East Coast city.
Pure Oasis is also among the few retail stores in the country owned and operated by people of color, who experts say have struggled to break into the industry. Massachusetts’ ballot initiative was the first to insert specific language aimed at encouraging people of color and others harmed by the war on drugs to participate in the new industry.
Matt Simon, New England political director for the Marijuana Policy Project, hailed the opening as a “huge milestone” for the East Coast, where most jurisdictions have approved cannabis for medicinal use only.
“This is only the beginning,” he said. “The fact that this is just the first in Boston shows how this is such an early market on this coast.”
But the store’s opening also underscores how minority entrepreneurs are already falling behind in the national industry, despite promises they would be prioritized, said Kayvan Khalatbari, a Denver-based marijuana consultant and former board member for the Minority Cannabis Business
Association.
“It’s worthy of acknowledgment, but at the same time, it’s nothing to celebrate,” he said. “We’ve got a long way to go before creating equity.”
Few of the 11 states that have legalized marijuana track how many people of color own pot companies, Khalatbari said, so industry groups have turned to their own surveys.
In Colorado, which was one of the first to legalize marijuana, in 2012, less than 1% of all marijuana operations are owned by people of color, the Minority Cannabis Business Association has estimated. In California, which legalized recreational marijuana use in 2016, about 20% of cannabis companies have some degree of ownership stake from a person of color, according to a recent survey by Marijuana Business Daily.
But it’s not just about increasing minority ownership of pot businesses, Khalatbari and other advocates say. Minority and disadvantaged communities should also benefit through more jobs for residents or other community investments.
Among their 30 or so staffers are residents who live within walking distance of the shop, as well as people with prior criminal records, said Evans.