EXCLUSIVE: RETAILERS SCRAMBLE
WeedWeek’s new business columnist Dan Mitchell talked to Bay Area retailers who have scrambled their businesses to operate on something like wartime footing:
When the shelter-in-place order was announced on Monday, Airfield Supply, a large San Jose retailer, immediately shut down, though the order wouldn’t take effect until Tuesday morning. “We did that to give our staff the opportunity to make decisions” about things like whether to come to work, Chris Lane, Airfield’s chief marketing officer said.
When the shop re-opened Tuesday, it was under the assumption that cannabis would be considered “essential.” But the 5,000 square-foot store closed to customers and converted itself into a fulfillment center for the shop’s delivery and pickup service.
A big looming question: Will supply hold up?
- Shareef El-Sissi, CEO of Hayward dispensary Garden of Eden said cannabis could be “the new toilet paper.”