Posted on 03/15/2022 12:52:14 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
OAKLAND, Calif. — Across from where the Athletics play baseball sits a two-story concrete building painted bright orange and white. It is home to a cannabis dispensary called Blunts and Moore.
A pair of inflatable “tube guys” flap crazily on the roof, beckoning customers with their windblown gyrations. A food truck sells tacos in the parking lot under a bright California sun.
But there are signs that all is not well here. Bullet holes etched by an assault rifle dot the entrance. Three security guards, dressed in military fatigues, screen customers as they pass through a metal detector. One of the guards, a former infantryman, wears a camouflage Kevlar vest and mirrored sunglasses. A 9-mm pistol and 50 rounds of ammunition are strapped to his waist.
“It’s crazy to think we need all this war stuff to protect our business,” said the store’s owner, Alphonso Blunt, who is known as Tucky. “But that’s where we are today.”
In May 2020, Blunts and Moore was ransacked by thieves with automatic weapons, incurring losses of nearly $1 million, much of which insurance would not cover. The store, which has the air of a high-end boutique, was robbed again in late November, its shelves cleared and the floor speckled with blood from where the thieves had cut their hands on all the smashed glass.
This is not what Blunt, the city of Oakland or the state of California had in mind for an ambitious effort to help grow a cannabis industry and provide financial opportunity to struggling neighborhoods with a large number of Black and Hispanic residents.
Blunt is among the entrepreneurs in Oakland, many of whom are Black, who were granted equity licenses to run cannabis businesses after California legalized the substance for recreational use in 2016.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Blunt is among the entrepreneurs in Oakland, many of whom are Black, who were granted *****equity licenses***** to run cannabis businesses after California legalized the substance for recreational use in 2016.
A industry/business I have absolutely zero interest being in, or investing in. They still get undercut by the illegal black market.
Gee, no one saw this coming.
The Promised Land of Legal Weed Utopia.
Lololol.
A pot store in Oakland is having trouble with armed criminals. Who’d a thought.
All the security is just a cost of doing business? What is the exact complaint here? Is it really an issue with marijuana businesses alone? Is it an Oakland thing; is this a bad neighborhood? What is really going on here?
You mean people wanna rip off drug dealers???
That almost never happens.
As they say about covid shot side effects and death.....it must be “rare”
Oakland IS a bad neighborhood
“many of whom are Black, who were granted equity licenses...”
Equity licenses?
...you don’t say!
A 9-mm pistol and 50 rounds of ammunition are strapped to his waist.
and a security license?
Isn’t that the area where they filmed Black Hawk Down? ;)
I consider the US to be 50 separate “mostly sovereign” countries. There are some of those countries that I refuse to visit. California is one of them. About 11 years ago my wife and I flew into the area for a quick day trip (we could fly free on Alaska). We waited at a bart station in Oakland to head to SF. It was like being in one of those post apocalypse movies. We ended up catching the next bus to the airport and never looked back.
What the hell is an “equity” license?
You must be a RASISSS!
Too easy to grow your own; why deal with the white or black market?
I don’t like to see crime take place.
Other than that, this is of no concern to me.
Equity license...
If they all burned down tomorrow it’s just wouldn’t matter
to me.
A lot of people do, but I’ve never had a big draw to cannabis.
As Willie Sutton said, “I rob banks because that’s where the money is.”
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