Adult-use cannabis store set to open Saturday will be a flagship for manufacturer Blue River
Cambridge’s third adult-use cannabis shop and the first outside Central Square is set to open Saturday.
Blue River, a brand that sells its signature concentrates and drops in more than 150 shops clustered in Florida and Massachusetts, plans a noon ribbon-cutting on a flagship store under its own name at 966 Cambridge St., in the Wellington-Harrington neighborhood. It’s the former Harvard Glass space between Inman Square and the King Open and Cambridge Street Upper School complex.
A location at 690-694 Broadway in Somerville’s Ball Square is expected to open sometime this spring, the company said.
Founder Tony Verzura and chief executive Jessica Pelletier will be in Cambridge for the opening, according to a company press release, and the store will then be open for business.
“All products available at Blue River will be completely solventless – an industry first – and will showcase other hand-selected Massachusetts brands with 15 percent of shelf space reserved for economic empowerment and social-equity companies,” the company said.
Yamba Market became the city’s first recreational weed seller April 20 and Western Front followed June 24: The shops are across the street from each other in Central Square. There’s a similar dynamic in Somerville, where there are two adult-use sellers and they’re across the street from each other in Davis Square: The Goods, which opened Nov. 17, and Sira Naturals, which began selling Ayr Wellness adult-use goods Nov. 28.
Oh goodie. Another one.
Still don’t understand how these marijuana markets are able to open so close to school zones.
But hey, it ain’t like we’re opening them next to Buckingham Browne & Nichols….so….power to the people! Bring on them tax dollars!
I see these type of comments a lot about dispensaries. Do you actually live near one? And if so what are the issues? We don’t have one in Cambridgeport afaik and I don’t use cannabis so I’ve never frequented one, but on first glance they seem pretty harmless to me. Genuinely curious
I suppose marijuana markets selling pre-roll singles are just as harmless as liquors stores that sell nips and the behavior it encourages. Never mind frequent violation of “no advertising visible to street traffic” restrictions and the inevitable opening of the “smoke shop” nearby.
And again, in the case of both the booze bazaars and the marijuana markets, ain’t seeing none of either opening up in Strawberry hill or West Cambridge. Why is that I wonder?
@Sam Noubert weed dispensaries are actually better than liquor stores when it comes to ensuring nobody under 21 buys anything. You can’t even enter the store without showing your id first, and you have to show it again when you make a purchase. Security is much, much tighter all the way around.
There are 2 smoke shops already in walking distance of this location. They likewise require you to be of legal age to shop.
Does the law that requires dispensaries not to advertise visible to street traffic apply to their products, or their business name? I certainly have not seen any product-specific advertising on any of the windows of the dispensaries in and around Cambridge, all I have seen is the business name and nothing else. Most commercial buildings require tenants to have some kind of signage indicating the business name, so I doubt that this is somehow illegal.
Using West Cambridge and Strawberry Hill as an example, how many liquor stores are in that neigborhood? Not many. It makes more sense that they would be in locations with higher population densities and access to multi-mode transportation.