Pot for sale: Cultivate Holdings opens doors in Leicester
LEICESTER - The crowds started forming a line around 6 a.m., standing outside in a mix of snow, sleet and rain. Four and a half hours later, the wait was three hours long. By 2:45, no new customers were being accepted in the line.
But the mood was - dare we say - high, as the first recreational marijuana sales in Massachusetts were rung up Tuesday.
“It’s a wicked historic day,” said Kenny Boisvert, 44, of Blackstone. “I’ve been waiting for this day a long time.”
Gary Lola, 40, of Leicester, agreed.
“I definitely think it was a historic day, I never thought I’d see it — not in Massachusetts, at least,” Mr. Lola said. “I feel great about it.”
Cultivate Holdings on Main Street in Leicester and New England Treatment Access in Northampton opened at 8 a.m. Tuesday as the first commercial marijuana shops in the state, offering marijuana by the ounce, edibles and other products to recreational consumers for the first time since the state voted to legalize adult-use of marijuana in 2016.
Asked whether the store was ready, Sam Barber, president and co-owner of Cultivate, said, “I think so.”
“We’ve spent a lot of time to make sure there’s enough parking. We have heated tents, a food truck. We want to make it the enjoyable day it should be and the historic day it should be,” he said.
And history was made.
Stephen Mandile, an Uxbridge native who was injured while serving in the U.S. Army National Guard in Iraq and who then founded the nonprofit Veterans Alternative Healing Inc., was the first customer.
“I’ll probably be some sort of trivia answer for some bar game or something sometime in my life,” Mr. Mandile joked.
But he quickly got serious.
“Three years ago I didn’t think that I’d be out in front of somewhere making the first purchase. It’s still sinking in, I think," Mr. Mandile said. "For the life it’s given me, and it’s given my wife a husband back, given my kids a father back, it’s incredible what this substance does.”
Including getting customers to drive for hours to reach Leicester.
“This is the first recreational sales on the East Coast, so it’s a big deal for a huge portion of the country,” said Jenny Chipman, 41, of Lincoln, New Hampshire. She said she hoped that her home state would soon follow Massachusetts’ lead.
“I wish it was done universally,” Ms. Chipman said. “But it is nice to see it happening. We’re chipping away.”
Jon Michaud, 33, of Nashua, New Hampshire, agreed.
“I just wish they would make it federal law. ... There’s not any reason for it not to be,” Mr. Michaud said. “If we get things going and show everyone that this can responsibly be done, hopefully this can spread and keep going.”
But not everyone was thrilled with the traveling on Tuesday.
“I don’t have anything against people smoking pot. I really don’t,” said Sue Krikorian, a neighbor on the street. “But this is crazy. This is insane that people would come this far and line up in traffic and wait for it, and pay 30 percent more than what they’re paying from their dealers - that’s kind of crazy too, although I know that’s not legal. I’m just really afraid that it’s going to upset our town.”
And Mr. Lola, who lives in Leicester, said he knew some people in town “are pissed.”
But he predicted that opposition to marijuana would decrease over time, particularly as the town is poised to get significant revenue from legal pot. Mr. Lola also pointed out that alcohol was once illegal too.
Several customers in line advocated not just for federal legalization, but for the medicinal benefits of the drug.
“I call it ‘healing of the nations,’ ” said Beau Michaels, 65, of Leominster, who said he had been smoking marijuana since age 13. Mr. Michaels said that marijuana minimized his back pain, helped him sleep and reduced his nausea - as well as made him hungry.
"All you want to do is sleep and eat,” Mr. Michaels said. “Now you might eat the whole refrigerator.”
Nicholas Ash of Ayer, diagnosed with terminal cancer, credited marijuana with keeping him alive.
“This is medicine - it’s a lifesaving medicine. It needs to be out there for everybody,” Mr. Ash said.
“I’m only here myself today because of cannabis,” Mr. Ash continued. “I lived past my expiration date because of cannabis.”
Others had different motivations.
“For a lot of people, it's pain relief and lots of things that they need,” said MaryKate Peralta, 29, of Spencer. “Honestly, for me, I’m just going to get high.”
Long lines but happy customers on the 1st day of recreational #pot sales in Massachusetts at #Cultivate in #Leicester #marijuana #cannabis @telegramdotcom @MoultonCyrus pic.twitter.com/3lMHg66hU9
— Rick Cinclair (@RickCinclair) November 20, 2018