Pot shops abuzz ahead of ‘Fweedom’

SAN DIEGO: Live music. Free T-shirts. A “Fweedom” celebration with mystery prize boxes worth up to $500 (about R6 190), and a shot at a behindthe-scenes tour.

Marijuana legalisation arrives in California on Monday with lots of hoopla, but only a handful of cities will initially have retail outlets ready to sell recreational pot.

By Friday, California had issued only 42 retail licences. Another 150 applications were pending and regulators planned to work a second straight weekend to review them.

Los Angeles and San Francisco were late in approving local regulations, meaning no recreational pot shops there will open their doors on Monday.

An outlet known as Caliva in San Jose is promoting the “Fweedom” celebration on Monday with prize boxes and exclusive tours of its growing areas.

The Berkeley Patients Group, which opened as a medical marijuana dispensary in 1999 and has received a permit for recreational sales, expects lines around the block to mark opening day. The mayor of the city that includes the University of California, Berkeley campus, is expected at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“You’ll see the people who have been consumers for decades and they were for legalisation back in the ’60s,” said Sean Luse, chief operating officer. “But you’re also going to see a more mainstream group of people who were waiting for the green light.”

Harborside is planning brass bands at its locations in Oakland and San Jose, with flags and T-shirts for the first 100 people in line.

Gary Cherlin, chief executive of Desert Organic Solutions Collective in North Palm Springs, received holiday news of his recreational sales permit as he devised promotional packages with hotels, aimed at tourists who come for warm winters.

“I don’t know how many more are coming but they don’t have a lot of time left,” he said.

Mount Shasta Patients Collective, which opened three years ago in the northern part of the state as a medical dispensary, has already turned away people coming for recreational pot.

Others with medical marijuana cards have been stocking up ahead of price increases expected after recreational weed is legal.

“We’ll have all hands on deck,” general manager Austin Freeman said of opening day. “It could be really hectic.” – AP