N.Y. clients try legal pot shop

Great Barrington store entices some to cross border

Thomas Winstanley stepped out of a side door, a large A-frame sign hoisted over his head, to immediate cheers.

“NOW OPEN,” it read in big block letters.

It was almost 10 a.m., and the crowd of 75 people who lined a path and parking lot outside of the Theory Wellness store would be entering the marijuana dispensary any minute now. It was the first day of recreational marijuana sales in Great Barrington, and many had been waiting in the biting cold for more than an hour. The first person in line got there just before 8 a.m.

Winstanley, the company’s marketing director, planted the sign near the roadside and posed for pictures with his fellow employees, grins plastered across their faces.

“There’s excitement in the air, and we’re feeding off that right now,” said Nick Friedman, the company’s chief financial officer.

Massachusetts voters elected to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2016, but the first pot shops didn’t open until this past November in the city of Northampton and town of Leicester. Theory Wellness, which operates two medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, was authorized to begin selling recreational products at its Great Barrington dispensary on Friday, making it the state’s sixth store to open in less than two months.

It’s also just 10 miles from the New York border, and the closest dispensary yet to the Capital Region (until Tuesday, that is, when a dispensary is slated to open in Pittsfield).

“It was mostly curiosity for me,” said a Chatham man who lined up early Friday, and asked not to be identified for fear of losing his job. “I’m more than happy to pay taxes on this and contribute to society. I think it’s ridiculous that New York spends so much money trying to fight it when we could be making money off it instead.”

New York lawmakers are debating whether to legalize recreational marijuana this year after Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who previously referred to marijuana as a gateway drug, changed course and called for legalization in a year-end address last month. Many believe the wave of legalization initiatives in neighboring states like Massachusetts made it impossible for New York not to consider it.

“My guess is you’re gonna find a lot of people crossing the state line a lot more now,” said Dale, who drove an hour from his home in Saugerties to the Great Barrington dispensary Friday.

Agreeing to give his first name only, Dale said he got a medical marijuana card when New York first legalized medicinal use in 2014. He has a seizure condition, and marijuana eliminated his seizures to the point where he was able to drive again.

“But it’s so expensive,” he said. “So I started growing my own.”

Dale also uses marijuana to get high, and said he always hated the process of buying the product on the black market.

“There’s a shady, hush hush aspect to it that I just don’t want to deal with,” he said. “Now I can walk into a store, buy three different kinds, and walk out? It’s great.”

Inside of Theory Wellness, customers were offered product menus while they waited in line. At the counter, they could talk to cannabis consultants who answered questions and opened glass canisters full of bud for customers to smell.

Available products included the f lower buds, as well as pre-rolled joints, edibles, extracts and infusions. Customers had to show a government ID to confirm they were over 21, and could only purchase up to an ounce of flower or 5 grams of concentrate a day.

Theory Wellness is vertically integrated, meaning it controls every stage of production from seed to sale. As the industry grows and the market becomes more crowded, Friedman said he hopes customers keep coming back for what he says are a unique, diverse array of products compared to others on the market.

“We focus on small-batch harvests, and pay close attention to terpenes,” he said. “THC is what gives marijuana potency, but terpenes are what give them all their flavor and aromatic qualities. It’s like wine. You wouldn’t just drink the strongest wine, you’d look for certain flavors or boldness or subtle notes, and that’s exactly what we pay attention to when growing cannabis.”