recreational cannabis

‘It's the End of Prohibition': Inside Look at How Cannabis Retailers Prepare for Sales

Adult-use cannabis sales became legal in Connecticut Tuesday and now it is all-hands-on deck for people working in the brand-new industry.

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Recreational cannabis sales have kicked off in Connecticut. People were out early to be some of the first to purchase cannabis legally.

Sales started at seven licensed hybrid dispensaries at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

There is a lot of pent up demand from consumers, with lines out the doors at locations in Branford, Meriden and Newington.

Consumers are not the only ones excited: state leaders are expecting the industry to bring in 10,000 new jobs.

Adult-use sales are also expected to bring in $300 to $375 million in adult-use sales, according to the trade publication MJBiz.

Cultivators and retailers have been preparing for this moment for more than 18 months, bolstering operations for opening day.

Behind closed doors at Connecticut’s largest cannabis cultivation and processing center, 125 employees are working full speed.

“We're hand-filling pre-rolls. This is for adult use, because it's really all hands-on-deck at this point,” Rino Ferrarese, Verano North Region executive vice president, said.

Verano’s Facility in Rocky Hill supplies the state’s 18 medical dispensaries. Now they are amping up operations for the hybrid dispensaries also licensed to sell cannabis for adult-use.

Ferrarese says beyond the seven dispensaries licensed now, others are expected to get approval from the state for recreational sales down the line.

“It's the end of prohibition, and the beginning of a new era. We're proud to be on the on the front line,” Ferrarese said.

A plant’s life cycle begins in a “clone room” at the Verano facility.

“They're definitely healthy,” Griffin Anderson, Verano cultivation manager, said, looking at the cloned plants. “These clones here are about two weeks old.”

In the space, small cuttings grow until they are ready to be potted.

“Grow nice big established plants by the time they get into the flowering rooms,” Anderson said.

In those rooms, there are seas of green. Each space is a perfectly maintained ecosystem.

“The plants need 12 hours of light, and 12 hours of darkness to flower,” Ferrarese said.

The cultivation process culminates in the dry room, where the product will hang for about a week.

“These are modified grapes. They look different, they smell a little different,” Ferrarese said. “Each of these buds will be removed carefully with a scissor.”

Each bud will be trimmed of its leaves before technicians in the the laboratory work tirelessly to transform it into vape and pre-rolls.

“What's our production rate at this point?” Ferrarese asked a lab technician. She responded that they had made 3,286 pre-roll cones over the course of the morning and early afternoon, excluding a lunch break.

There is a separate section of the building dedicated to edibles.

“These are the first gummies we'll be seeing in the Connecticut market,” Ferrarese said. "We have strawberry peach, which is the sour, we'll have mango, grape, strawberry and sweet berry."

Anticipating adult-use sales, Verano expanded within its 216,000-square-foot facility.

“Tens of thousands of cases of product getting ready to ship,” Ferrarese said.

Staff is making use of the extra space.

“These are delivery vans,” Ferrarese said. “We used to do two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. So now it's five days a week.”

Those vans carry product to places like Zen Leaf. Verano recently acquired the dispensary in Meriden. On site, they are ready to meet the demands of adult-use sales.

“Expanding the total amount of inventory we have, more registers. We've hired about 20 to 25 people and are still hiring,” Vincent Bucchieri, Zen Leaf general manager, said.

Bucchieri says while the team is ensuring continued quality for medical patients, they also welcome recreational users. Staff and new employees have been training for the “Super Bowl” that is opening day, and the weeks beyond.

“We're expecting it to be busy,” Bucchieri said. “We're going to have employees all over the place as far as inside, outside the store.”

Another company, Fine Fettle, also revamped its stores.

“We took down some walls, took down some doors, and we created the space so that we could, one, have more employees here, two, be able to carry more product,” Dennis So, Fine Fettle general manager, said.

Fine Fettle onboarded 100 employees for adult-use sales across its three locations in Newington, Willimantic and Stamford. The company got 1,500 applicants, according to COO Ben Zachs.

“I made it here out of hundreds of applicants. So I'm more than grateful for the opportunity,” Maria Karoni, one of Fine Fettle’s new employees in Newington, said.

About 60 of those brand-new employees are starting up at the Newington location. They came together for an orientation last week to learn more about the job and how to best serve clients.

“I was actually a medical patient prior. Just wanted to be part of history, wanted to be part of something bigger,” Gina Oliveira, a new employee, said.

Beyond an operational standpoint, Zachs also wants the new team members to grasp the consequential moment. 

“I think it really changes the story around cannabis, the demonization of this plant from the war on drugs,” he said.

Seeing an opportunity to right the wrongs of the past in this budding industry.

“It's more than just opening a store,” Zachs said. “We are creating an industry from scratch. We're changing history here.”

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