CLEARLAKE — Shelves lined with jars of cannabis flower, with what was once known as a joint but is now called a pre-roll, oils, tinctures, edibles, drinks, lotions, salves, seeds, vape cartridges, beauty infused products, bath bombs, concentrates and pet tinctures, all in slick-packaging, is the new look of cannabis.
There are three retail dispensaries in Clearlake, two approved delivery dispensaries, and 12 other permits for various activities, which are manufacturing, nursery, cultivation and distribution.
Lakeside Herbal Solutions on Mullen Avenue is one of the three dispensaries in Clearlake that sells cannabis products to the public. Customers first have to show ID to prove they are over 21 years old. Once proven they’re let into the ‘product room’.
Owner Chris Jennings talks about how his bud tenders (salespeople) educate their customers on what combination of oils or flowers would be the best for the customers’ needs.
Such needs include the recreational along with an assortment of medical. Jennings said of his typical customers, “Less than 25 percent of our guests just want to get high. The rest are using product for stress relief, sleep and a good portion use it for pain or other serious health issues. There are so many stories of how people use product because they don’t want to use pain pills prescribed to them due to the pills being very addictive, which leads to other health issues.”
Proving his point, a 60-ish woman came into the product room for her weekly purchase of assorted flower and tincture for her back pain. “Yes, I like to get high, but the tincture has also made it so that I can move around, otherwise I’d be bedridden.” Danesha Jones, 36, bought stress-release Purple Punch flower and some edibles to help her calm down after having just been what she termed “racially profiled by the cop who pulled me over for nothing.”
Michelle Chandler, 30, manager of Lakeside Herbal Solutions and marketing director travels to the Bay area and along the coast, placing their cannabis brand, South Lake Farms via the distribution company Red Sky Distributions into other dispensaries. “We want to put a professional name to cannabis. Our intention is to make our county proud. To build a name that people can stand behind. I came from the healthcare industry before this. It’s time for people to realize the medicinal value of cannabis. This is going to revolutionize our healthcare system. Lake County’s got an opportunity to have a stand in that.”
Chandler believes the healthcare system will change to include cannabis. “I think it’s going to happen naturally. That’s what cannabis has going for it – it works. She added that 80 percent of the people who come into the shop, come back the next week because it (cannabis) works.
When asked if has the city of Clearlake has been aggressive in pursuing the cannabis industry, Clearlake City Manager Greg Folsom said, “I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve been aggressive in pursuing them, but we have been aggressive in making sure our ordinances are up-to-date and keeping with the changes of the state. We do look at commercial cannabis as an opportunity for new jobs and new revenue for the city.”
Folsom spoke about Clearlake’s progress with the cannabis industry and if the city’s efforts could be used as a template for other counties. “There’s a lot of cities throughout the state that are doing a similar thing that we’re doing,” he said.”I think that we’re at the lead within Lake County, but I can’t speak for how they’re doing it in other counties. We started updating our ordinances [in] the middle of 2017 and we moved quickly to put things in place due to the changes in the law. We had companies that were interested in coming here and we wanted to accommodate those companies and get new jobs and new revenues, so we did move fairly quickly.”
Folsom explained that the city is considering changes to their existing ordinance to allow a micro-business, a vertically integrated business where owners have to have three out of four businesses; cultivation, distribution, manufacturing and retail, one of which has to be retail.
“We’ll be looking at whether to allow those in the future. It’s something that the state allows and so we’re looking to see if the planning commission and the city council want to allow it.” Folsom added that it would eliminate the middlemen and have everything under one roof, creating a “One-stop shop”.
Natasha Sokoloski, the soft-spoken general manager at D&M Compassion Center, a dispensary on Olympic Drive said that because there are three dispensaries in Clearlake, they wanted to find their own identity, “What makes us different?” Since they are wheelchair accessible, they cater to the disabled. “We’ve partnered with companies like Bloom Farms, who donates a meal to a “food insecure” individual or family for every product purchased, we use companies with eco-friendly packaging as much as we can, we like to keep the market for the sun-grown farmers rather than indoor farmers. We search out and get the best of the best. Plus what makes us different is our customer service. We really focus on service, and make sure every customer has every question answered. We listen to our customers.”
Sokoloski said D&M is trying to bring people to the city by offering discounts, say to fishermen, making Clearlake a destination with an eye towards keeping the business going and keeping the community growing.
In the product room of Lakeside Herbal Solutions, Jennings spread his arms to include product on the shelves. “This is all grown in Lake County. I want to brand Lake County cannabis because we grow such a superior product compared to so many other places. I want Lake County to be the Napa Valley of cannabis.”
