Cannabis Comes To Natick
By Sean Sullivan
The start of this new year brought an historic first to Natick; in January, the town’s inaugural cannabis retailer set up shop.
Though if you’re not paying close enough attention, you just might miss it.
Still getting settled into its new digs, the seller is located in the Cloverleaf Mall complex, a string of stores that’s long stood in the shadow of the Natick Mall and the retail juggernaut known as the Golden Mile.
Victor Chiang is CEO of “Redi,” the cannabis company he co-founded with a few longtime friends. The new Natick Redi is the younger sister store to Chiang’s first retail cannabis venture, located in Newton.
Chiang and his partners settled on that name for their stores, perhaps in part to skirt some of the stigma that still sticks to the commercial cannabis industry. Francesco Redi, the 17th-century Italian physician, naturalist, biologist and poet, has been called the founder of experimental biology.
That Redi delved into the disciplines of science and art nominates him as an apt ambassador for cannabis culture. After all, the plant’s pharmaceutical and recreational offspring embody both chemistry and creativity, objective experimentation and subjective experience. The name is short, simple and ripe for wordplay.
For his own part, Chiang said he didn’t get into the business out of an affinity for cannabis or its culture, per se.
“I was a pretty strait-laced kid,” said the Wellesley resident, who grew up in Weston. “It’s funny to sort of be here now. This is kind of our old neighborhood.” After a career in finance, he saw the cannabis industry as a good financial bet.
“I came at it from a much more investor perspective.”
Jim Belushi is likewise a stakeholder in the industry, though one with a far-higher public profile. The actor is more renown these days as a commercial cannabis grower and seller, perhaps more so than he ever was for his career in film. In a third act that took a sharp and successful left turn, he’s recast himself as entrepreneur and evangelist for the plant and its potential.
Belushi can be found on social media streams delving his hands into a container of harvested greens, posing among glass jars stuffed with a cannabis harvest, at work inside the greenhouses that shelter his growing operation. The Hollywood veteran cultivates his own crop on the west coast, and sells from “Belushi’s Farm” retail locations in states where cannabis is legal, including Massachusetts.
Belushi’s older brother John fell famously to “hard-drug” addiction decades ago, a loss that Jim highlights as a major motivation behind his becoming a producer and promoter of pot.
In a pinned post, he writes “If my brother John was a pothead, he’d still be with us today. I got into cannabis because I believe in the medicine, and I believe it can help me heal my traumas.”
That sentiment echoes a growing consensus of studies, whose statistical sights have been trained on the negative impacts of drugs on societies. Their conclusion: alcohol is king, unrivaled dictator in the quality and quantity of a vast array of health and societal harms. Though this century, the opioid industry seems intent on making a play for alcohol’s throne, a newer and more-potent drug of choice causing so-called deaths of despair.
Cannabis seems almost boring by contrast, often falling far down on these lists of infamy, sometimes at the bottom of such rankings.
Belushi is playful with the tropes and memes of cannabis customs, co-opting promos culled
from popular culture. Marvel Studio’s “Ant-Man” has been altered, Belushi’s face photo-shopped over the superhero, now rebranded as Plant-Man. The actor’s superimposed face makes appearances also as the “Potfather,” “Indiana Grows,” etc.
Belushi’s success in this arena speaks to another aspect of the current commercial cannabis industry - its high barrier to entry. The actor benefits from name recognition, powerful connections and access to capital. Lacking any or all of these resources puts the business of pot beyond the reach of many startup entrepreneurs. “Mom and pop” shops, for the most part, these aren’t.
“reLeaf,” another cannabis retailer, is setting up shop in the former Papa Gino’s locale on Route 9. Its location and the building’s infrastructure made it a favored option for the cannabis company. In a zoom meeting with Natick officials a few years ago, reLeaf principals summoned a small army of advisors to testify.
A traffic analyst, security professional, architect, and others appeared on behalf of reLeaf - to assuage and address the concerns of residents and town officials. Despite the assurances and polished presentations, reLeaf is only now approaching the finish line, slated for a grand opening later this year. Concerns about traffic flow were a key point of contention.
In 2016, Massachusetts’ Question 4 proposed legalizing cannabis in the state, the ballot measure passing by just under 54 percent.
“Every community does it a little bit differently,” said Chiang, adding that would-be cannabis companies must first garner approval at the local level before petitioning state authorities for the final green light.
State strictures say that each municipality can accommodate at least one cannabis retailer for every five “off-premise” liquor licenses the town has granted. In terms of off-premise, think of a dedicated liquor store, not a bar that resides within a restaurant.
Two is company, but three or more cannabis shops might be considered a crowd. When reLeaf moves into Natick, that would likely meet a threshold of maximum occupancy for marijuana retailers in the town.
By state decree, cannabis companies can only advertise through media wherein at least eighty percent of the audience is 21 years of age or older. That makes mailers and flyers, and many other forms of legacy media, a no-go.
“So advertising is very tricky for us,” said Chiang. “We’re still trying to ramp up.”
Still, the stigma and obstacles facing commercial pot seem melting away as cannabis diffuses into the background of daily life. In years since Massachusetts deemed the stuff legal for recreational use, the sky has not fallen.
Suburban Massachusetts streets have not come to mirror the mayhem portrayed in “Reefer Madness,” the absurd 1936 anti-cannabis propaganda film. “Women cry for it -” proclaims a promotional poster for the anti-pot film. “Men die for it!”
“I think the stigma of it is becoming less and less prevalent,” said Chiang, noting that studies have shown teen use of cannabis declines in locales where it’s been legalized.
With online retail in general gobbling up a larger slice of the sales sector pie, brick-and-mortar renters and startups must do business ever more outside the box to survive. With so many purchases now just a few clicks away, even the Golden Mile has lost its formerly brilliant luster as a magnet for business.
To combat the nearly seamless and frictionless experience of buying from one’s phone, said Chiang, sellers must offer something special to coax buyers from the couch. Commercial cannabis, he added, is no different.
That something, said Chiang, is a unique experience.
Back in the commercial era of yesteryear, nearby Sears served as a flagship of retail ethos. The store’s (actual) array of flags fluttered high atop its looming gray edifice, crowning the company’s logo and namesake, visible to passersby on Natick’s Route 9. In those days, Sears took point in an armada of shops that trailed behind it in that Natick Mall of old.
The company closed that location a few years back, supplanted by Dave and Busters, a sprawling video and entertainment arcade. It’s a business that deals, as Chiang might say, in experience.
Now within view of the former Sears superstore, Chiang’s Redi in Natick was dreamed up and designed to provide the in-person experience and connection that has thus far slipped through the grasping fingers of online sellers.
Redi’s owners may envision their new store as a flagship of sorts itself. It’s located on the east end of the Cloverleaf Mall complex, a smaller collection of stores that’s seen many companies come and go over its decades.
Nestled on the periphery of Speen Street’s tangle of off and on-ramps, Cloverleaf may be the most visible mall you’ve never been to. Redi now stands on the former site of “Service Merchandise,” a retail chain that folded decades ago.
During those still-heady days of in-person retail competition, the chain seemed to grasp the value of a unique customer experience. Instead of sprawling shelves stocked with quantities of the same product, the store was a gallery of sorts, featuring unboxed, assembled wares customers could touch.
Buyers would bring an item’s ticket to a portal near the store’s entrance, and a boxed version of their product would appear atop a conveyor belt from the warehouse bowels beneath. The system allowed the store to sell more items in a smaller footprint, and offered customers a novel checkout experience.
It wasn’t, of course, novel enough to save the store from extinction. Nor were subsequent innovations and iterations unique enough to keep the many businesses afloat that had set up shop there since. Redi’s owners are invested in changing that dynamic, hoping to lead the local cannabis industry, and their newly-adopted commercial complex, into a new era.
To that end, Chiang and his partners designed their stores with a smooth, welcoming and educational shopping experience in mind.
Illustrative of what not to do, when one of the first local cannabis retail shops opened in the Boston area a few years ago, one might have been struck by the level of friction associated with the buying experience.
That early dispensary required customers to stand in line in an outdoor lot overlooking Route 9. As if corralled in a queue to get into a concert, patrons waited in columns flanked by metal gray barrier fencing, in full view of cars crisscrossing the busy thoroughfare. Uniformed police were ubiquitous on site.
That store was also housed in a former bank, its vaults and security schematics put to good use by its new tenant. The industry in its infancy has been primarily a cash business, as most banks have been reluctant to facilitate transactions for products ostensibly still illegal on the federal level.
Still, that old bank had been originally built like a fortress, and held within its walls all the warmth and welcome of a museum gallery. Barred windows, marble surfaces and thick glass abounded. Though products were colorfully named and arrayed within glass cases like candy at a movie theater concession stand, employees worked ensconced within the reinforced nooks of their bank teller predecessors.
“It’s a little bit like the Soup Nazi store,” said Chiang of the cannabis buying experience of the not-so-distant past.
But best practices for pot sales have evolved for the better in the few years since those early days. A store on Route 30 in Framingham allowed patrons to purchase items online, schedule a time most convenient for them to pick up their orders. The appointment system avoided a glut of customers waiting in lines outside or inside the store.
Redi’s solution is a sizable vestibule just inside its entrance, staffed by someone who makes a quick identification check. No appointment is required, though visitors must be 21 years or older to enter. Given the green light, potential customers are buzzed in through a door leading to a roomy retail space.
Redi’s colors are pastels of orange against gray. Its high ceilings and décor seem redolent of a recreation or break room one might find in a Google headquarters. Clean lines, open space, a welcoming and playful environment.
Walking into the store, Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” happened to be streaming from store speakers. It seemed a bit on the nose, but turned out to be just an opportune draw from the playlist deck. Other songs soon began to stream, a mix eclectic enough that Coolio blended into its shuffle history.
That mix of music echoed the balanced customer experience the store seems seeking to strike. It pays homage to veterans and acolytes of cannabis culture, while taking pains not to scare off the straits. And in the process, the store hopes to convert those cannabis-curious consumers who might be teetering in the middle.
Redi’s presentation and product is slick, but retains the subversive soul of cannabis counterculture. Electronic menu boards toggle among marijuana’s many mediums, displaying the store’s breadth of products on offer. “Wicked Mint,” “Sour Diesel” and “Pineapple OG” among many. The overall style is Seth Rogan in a three-piece-suit.
Thus far, dear reader, we’ve largely avoided the weed wordplay that’s bound to waft into any story about the Devil’s Lettuce. But do not despair. The new Natick store makes Redi use of the opportunity. Within these walls, pot puns prevail.
Emblazoned in block lettering on one wall, a visitor might agree that the place is, in fact, “My Favorite Joint.” Also, would you happen to be “Redi to Roll”?
The word games are at once a nod to customers already on board with cannabis, and welcome levity to those who might still be sitting on the fence. A major facet of the Redi ethos, said Chiang, is introducing the public to and informing them about what’s on offer.
Customers are free to browse as long as they wish in a judgment and pressure-free atmosphere, perhaps recline on plush furniture in an open space. Redi staff emerge from behind sales counters to interact and ask questions. Private consultations are available by appointment. Use of debit cards to make cannabis purchases is becoming an industry standard, and that holds true at Redi locations.
As legal restrictions on pot recede ever more across the country, like a long fog lifting, Chiang looks to America’s prohibition era for commonalities and contrasts. When the nation’s alcohol ban was repealed in the early 1930s, the liquid drug was nonetheless still a well-known quantity among the public.
That’s not the case with cannabis, said Chiang. As it’s being legalized across the United States in fits and starts, the plant and its products are emerging largely from the shadows. Shining sunlight on pot and its potential, said Chiang, is one of Redi’s core values.
“What is it you’re trying to address here?” he asked. “That was how we approached the retail industry. There’s a great need for education in this space.”
