The New Retail Thread

mdd said:
Something I never thought about, since pot is legal I wonder if we will ever see a marijuana cafe, like thy have in Amsterdam. Seeing how hard it is to get a liquor license and how puritanical some laws still are, probably never.
Click to expand...

I don't believe the legalization structure allows for cafes to serve as dispensaries.
 
odurandina said:
Pretty cryptic. I'm beginning to wonder if some bars are closing because to exist you have to charge prices that a significant portion of the public can no longer afford to pay.
Click to expand...

If that were true, bars would be empty. In fact the opposite is true - Boston bars are jam packed all the time.
 
Boston is clearly following in the footsteps of NYC & San Fran (in terms of income diversity and all that flows from that). There are certainly far worse paths to follow but there is a definitive downside to this as well.
 
fattony said:
Boston bars are jam packed all the time.
Click to expand...

my assumption in 3.... 2.... 1....

Not with working folk of the lower incomes *like 30 years ago they ain't.


*prolly hard to prove.

Either way, the trend of all these bar closings is very disquieting.
 
I wonder if we need a new thread specifically for cannabis stuff — I should have posted this in advance but I attended the Roslindale community meeting tonight about a store (I'm getting pretty sick of saying "dispensary") around the corner from my house. The meeting was packed, with immediate and aggressive clapping from a significant contingent every time someone raised concerns about traffic Armageddon... and that came up endless times. It's so amazing how micro-focused people are in this city — a lot of people kept saying this should go in the square (it's on South St, by Henry's Market)... my God, the Sq is literally block away. Every community meeting I've ever gone to in Boston, it's always "oh, some place that's literally one block away would be more appropriate, but this is a neighborhood"... Many loud grunts of pseudo-knowing scoffing whenever the speaker suggested parking would be OK. You would think South Street was a parking lot the way these people talked. And then there were many expected people employing various forms of "think of the children", or quoting bogus reports about weed, or other things that have no bearing on the store opening, since weed is legal now, regardless of what you think about that. Very frustrating.

For his part, the prospective retailer was not prepared and I think he could have done a much better job handling some of the hysteria... for one, he several times referred to it as "hysteria" (which it is, but you cant say that), and I think could have been a little more cogent in mollifying at least some of the extremists who were more moderate (there's people in these meetings who would fit right in with ISIS), and offer some concrete assurances. The angry crowd basically cast the whole thing like it was going to be destination retail, and he was basically saying it wont be destination since there will many other shops in Boston. Personally, I think the restrictive nature of the retail rules in Boston is ridiculous (1/2 mile between them) and will create more problems than they foresee... but hopefully there will in fact be enough that this would not be a traffic nightmare. But, it's not 100% unreasonable to expect a flood of people parking around the hood and I don't totally blame the residents on some of the denser streets for at least expressing some degree of concern about this. Some statistics by the retailer would have been helpful (like: 12-20% of MA residents smoke [this doesnt actually say how MUCH they smoke, which obviously varies quite a bit], if Boston has 50 shops which they claim they will in the next few years, and several in all the towns around Boston, you get somewhere around 1500-2000 customers per store (at the most, assuming all of them have to re-up every week, which they will not).
 
As someone on the business side of these proposals, the proprietors often seen very unprepared and naive to the regulations they are facing on a local, state and federal level. I've had a license holder mention getting a bank loan to open their retail shop...although that's nearly impossible since a FDIC bank cannot lend to an illegal activity for Federal purposes.
Also, many don't realize there is a specific provision in the tax code the prevents them from taking ANY deductions against their taxable income, unless they hire a good team to structure it. This generally throws a loop in their "business plan".

To me, everyone seems in a rush to the gold mine and haven't done enough due diligence of how this is all going to work out.
 
falcon42 said:
As someone on the business side of these proposals, the proprietors often seen very unprepared and naive to the regulations they are facing on a local, state and federal level. I've had a license holder mention getting a bank loan to open their retail shop...although that's nearly impossible since a FDIC bank cannot lend to an illegal activity for Federal purposes.
Also, many don't realize there is a specific provision in the tax code the prevents them from taking ANY deductions against their taxable income, unless they hire a good team to structure it. This generally throws a loop in their "business plan".

To me, everyone seems in a rush to the gold mine and haven't done enough due diligence of how this is all going to work out.
Click to expand...

In this particular case, I'm not actually sure of whether the finances are worked out or not, but I was just surprised at the fact that the presenter clearly did not expect the degree of opposition, or seemed a little too blasé about it. I was with him 100% but he could have faked concern, empathy, etc a little bit better. People forget that Boston neighborhoods are actually extremely socially conservative, beyond just the reflexive opposition to just about anything. There were a lot of old, salt-of-the-earth people who I'm sure are great but just were obviously never going to change their stigmatized, boogieman views on cannabis and cannabis users.

I also think the presenter overplayed his hand a little (to the more liberal younger folks in the room) by trying to espouse lots of social justice initiatives with his shop, but then was at a loss to give any specifics when someone asked what concrete things he actually had in mind in this regard.
 
Not sure where I saw it but there has been some recent data collected (not from Mass obviously) with respect to property values and crime rates in the vicinity of dispensaries after they have opened. Property values actually increased and any changes in the crime rates were not significant.
 
BosDevelop said:
Not sure where I saw it but there has been some recent data collected (not from Mass obviously) with respect to property values and crime rates in the vicinity of dispensaries after they have opened. Property values actually increased and any changes in the crime rates were not significant.
Click to expand...

I honestly can't come up with any theoretical mechanism by which legal marijuana stores would lead to increased crime. Like, what's even a possible argument for that?

People come to legal marijuana stores for the express purpose of following the law. If they wanted to break the law they could do it anywhere except for at the legal marijuana store.
 
Very simple. The "stoner" comes to our safe community, spend the money they clearly stole to buy some "Premium Buds". Smoke a "bowl" and get all crazed! Then, since they are all out of cash and craving another "fix", they break into my house and rob me to get more money to bring back to the "café" for their next "hit".

It's all very neatly spelled out in the documentary, Reefer Madness.
 
statler said:
Very simple. The "stoner" comes to our safe community, spend the money they clearly stole to buy some "Premium Buds". Smoke a "bowl" and get all crazed! Then, since they are all out of cash and craving another "fix", they break into my house and rob me to get more money to bring back to the "café" for their next "hit".

It's all very neatly spelled out in the documentary, Reefer Madness.
Click to expand...


There's that LOL. But there's also a ton of people who think a pot shop means that there will be 38 people loitering outside the store smoking weed all day and all night listening to music, banging drums and leaving a mess. The Leicester traffic issues and neighbor complaints haven't helped things. We need more stores to open so people can't even argue that traffic/lines outside etc. will be an issue because those won't be an issue once there are more stores open near and in our population centers.
 
BosDevelop said:
There's that LOL. But there's also a ton of people who think a pot shop means that there will be 38 people loitering outside the store smoking weed all day and all night listening to music, banging drums and leaving a mess. The Leicester traffic issues and neighbor complaints haven't helped things. We need more stores to open so people can't even argue that traffic/lines outside etc. will be an issue because those won't be an issue once there are more stores open near and in our population centers.
Click to expand...

While I agree that would help, there is just a significant contingent of conservatives and NIMBYs who will always oppose a neighborhood dispensary, no matter what.

Also, the hypocrisy of all the rich snobby towns that voted for legalization by wide margins, only to then ban dispensaries in those towns, is disgusting.
 
FK4 said:
Also, the hypocrisy of all the rich snobby towns that voted for legalization by wide margins, only to then ban dispensaries in those towns, is disgusting.
Click to expand...

I see this less as hypocrisy and more as a clear demonstration of how un-democratic many municipal-level decisions are. The vote to legalize marijuana was made on the general election ballot in a presidential year. That's the sort of election that gets the greatest turnout and yields the most representative sample of true public opinion. The lower profile decisions regarding dispensary permitting aren't being made at the same democratic level and only consider input from a much smaller slice of the population.

Basically, the majority that voted to legalize marijuana aren't the people turning out in force to complain about dispensaries, and the people pushing back against dispensary openings don't represent the majority that voted to legalize.

This is what happens ALL THE TIME with municipal (and even State and Federal) decisions. The crowd that shows up at a "community meeting" (or subcommittee hearing or lower-profile election or whatever) isn't representative of the population as a whole, but all too often their opinions overrule those of a more representative sample of the public.
 
^ Yes. Very true. The sad fact is that the lower the level of meeting or election, the more the people who show up are bound to be older, whiter, and more conservative. Rather than just opining about this fact, the real question is how to actually engage more people - especially young people and minoroties - to SHOW UP and make their voices heard.
 
Fancy-schmancy restaurant planned for Revere Beach

Two restaurateurs known for their upscale establishments in Charlestown, East Boston and Faneuil Hall Marketplace are planning a 5,000-square outlet with "a creative menu and cocktail program and a lively oceanfront dining experience" at a luxury-apartment building under construction on Ocean Avenue, across from the Wonderland T stop.
Click to expand...


https://www.universalhub.com/2018/fancy-shmancy-restaurant-planned-revere-beach
 
I was vomiting in the Boylston St station tonight, and a large, strange man came up and demanded that I tell him when the Tam was going to reopen. True story.
 
FK4 said:
Also, the hypocrisy of all the rich snobby towns that voted for legalization by wide margins, only to then ban dispensaries in those towns, is disgusting.
Click to expand...

which towns are you referring to? I live in a MetroWest suburb. I voted in favor of legalization. I am not aware of any towns in my immediate area voting to ban dispensaries. Town/city administrators themselves have issued moratoriums but citizens voting to permanently ban stores? Not saying it hasn't happened, I just can't recall it. In fact, didn't Newton's citizens just vote down a ban on recreational stores last month?
 
FK4 said:
While I agree that would help, there is just a significant contingent of conservatives and NIMBYs who will always oppose a neighborhood dispensary, no matter what.

Also, the hypocrisy of all the rich snobby towns that voted for legalization by wide margins, only to then ban dispensaries in those towns, is disgusting.
Click to expand...

Ever heard of the term limousine liberal? For a prime example of this, look at a place like NYC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top