The Cole Memo

In this episode, I speak with Alyson about her experience of working and shopping in New York’s cannabis market. You might recognize Alyson from our discussion on The Chillinois Podcast.

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The auto-generated transcript is available below.

well I was just looking and it looks like the last time you were on was episode number 292 of the chillino podcast which is a throwback yes we rebranded yes we did yes we did and so uh speaking of the rebranding I’m going to read a quick blurb just so that people know where to find the video podcast and stuff and then we’ll launch right into our podcast so folks like I just said this is the Cole memo I’m your host Cole Preston every episode is released in audio video and transcript format if you’d like to find the audio video or transcript of any episode just go into the link of the description that you’re listening to now rather go into the description of the episode that you’re listening to now and you’ll find a link and that link will take you to our website which will display the audio video or transcript version of the episode if you’re having trouble finding that link just simply take note of this episode number and go to the Cole memo.com from there you can use the new search functionality that I built into the website to just type in the episode epis number and it should pop right up and then from there you can watch the video version before we get started I just want to say that the coal memo is brought to you by listeners like you so if you’d like to directly support this show you can do that with a one-time monthly or yearly contribution of your choice at the coal memo.com support or you can go to the memo.com patreon which only costs $3 a month you get the episodes as they release it’s a great way to support our show but the best way to support our show is free tell your friends about it share it leave a positive review all that good stuff today is February 20th 2024 and I’m sitting back down with Alison Allison remind F yeah hell yeah remind uh people who who you are especially in case they missed you the first episode for sure um yes some of you may remember me I was a former uh employee of sunyside Wrigleyville I was amongst the other two DJ and Ethan that came on to kind of expose a lot of the uh injustices dare I say that have been going on within our employment there um I and I still keep up to date with them it still seems like it’s a lot of the same issues and that really sads me to say but I’m really not surprised but I just heard that the Sunny Side over here in Williamsburg caput done so I am I’m pretty I’m I’m hyped that they’re kind of going down in flames so I’m hoping cuz that’s what I told my cokers before I left to steal a line from I think fight clubs and I know Brad Pit said it uh you’re polishing the brass on the on the Titanic like get out of here like you you guys deserve so much better than what we have been given and what they continue to be given um but the one good thing is the one like really horrible manager that I complained the most about on my last time there is gone so hopefully um hopefully the vibe is a little bit better I I I talked to you with a good handful of uh my my former co-workers I miss them dearly I miss you all dearly um but yeah that’s that’s what’s been going on since I since I was on yeah well thank you again for joining us then and thank you for joining me now you’re in New York now right yes I moved in June so I um I originally started as I got a job as the assistant manager at the first dispensary to open up at the Bronx um as of November of this last year I’m no longer with them and they’ like to say they fired me I more so kind of did a Qui quiet quitting type thing be just because and it’s kind of funny because I I thought for a second like oh I’m going to be going to a startup um it’s it’s ostensibly a mom and pop shop if you want to think of it that way compared to where I was before um and that’s that’s the one great thing about New York is we were a little quicker even though we’re still on the infancy stages of our industry as well here we adopted the less corporate um view of dispensaries and favor I should say like favoring the corporate dispensaries we still certainly have them I I currently work for one that I won’t mention but um we I’m really liking the progress that we’ve made to that extent um over here because I’m certainly seeing a lot more especially in the past like three months I’ll say I’m certainly seeing a lot more like privately owned dispensaries opening up in addition to uh it’s been my favorite thing to brag about since I got here is the deli culture is phenomenal um it’s to a certain extent Black Market stuff um but yeah you I can walk around the corner grab like a joint a bagel and a coffee all in one stop and it’s it’s pretty magical and it and I can get a joint I can get like a one gram joint for like $10 it’s it’s pretty great out here I gotta say that’s been like my favorite thing to brag about to uh my friends back home in Chicago I was going to ask you about that you know I talked to both people in cannabis but I’ve also talked to people that don’t believe cannabis should be legal and they use New York as an example as to as to a state that is messed up and they say look at New York you can’t even walk down the street without it wreaking of weed um and there’s all these illegal pot shops again this is coming from somebody who does not believe cannabis should be legal do they have a point there is it that bad um and of course I say is it that bad we would say it’s that good right and and that’s exactly where I’m at we’re like yeah and and like I’ve only lived here you know in the past six months so I don’t really know like what it was prior to my arrival here sure but I’d like to assume that it was like that regardless um regardless of what direction we’re heading in that’s kind of how it was like Chicago was the same exact way I lived there for a good amount of time prior to its legalization and you could walk around it you could walk around anywhere and it’s going to smell like weed like we’re you’re not going to keep us down like the prohibition like clearly hasn’t worked but that’s that’s what I really like about the city that’s like one of the greatest things and one of the worst things about New York is that just like we act as if rules don’t apply to us for a lot of things and just like you certainly will see some cops like bust up some of these shops but like a lot of them are just like free wheeling like the one around the corner for me is literally called like Zaza like it’s and they’re like very very open and very like out out and proud about like just being like this kind of like gray Market weed shop um which I I like I said I really like and that ties into where I was at assistant managing this this new this spot in the Bronx is their mindset was very misguided I’ll say ownership and uh I would say to a limb of that my um my general manager they very much saw these kinds of shops as competition when they shouldn’t have and they were essentially putting basing their business around that to the point where we were open till 11: pm. it um we tried to um chase a lot of a lot of companies that were overhyped I’ll say in order to compete with those with those kind of um Deli strains and things like that but the biggest thing was yeah we got to compete with this and this and this and the thing that I kept telling them over and over again is just we can’t see them as competition because they don’t operate on the same plane as we do like they can sell to kids they can be as open as as long as they want um and to my point is especially in that neighborhood why if if I were a person living in the Bronx why would I go to a because as of right now as as far as I know there’s that shop and then there’s the medical only shop that’s out there I can’t I I think it’s verit life I could be wrong but I think that’s the one that’s out in the Bronx if I were a cannabis user in the Bronx why would I go to a quote unquote legal dispensary and give so much of my tax money that I’m already giving to the state with like the state clearly does not give a [ __ ] about me in my neighborhood in the state of where I live so of course I’m going to go to the mom and pop shop that and I’m going to give my money to them and that at least supports a small business and you’re not giving it to the state that has shown like yeah no we don’t care about you and we’re gonna we’re gonna continue to keep you living in this dumpster essentially because it’s just and I hate to say that because I love the Bronx the Bronx is really awesome I I was there pretty much every day and I I found a lot of good food joints like that the Bronx is really awesome and definitely should like a lot of people around here are like that’s kind of like the one burrow that they haven’t been to and there are people that have lived here for years that haven’t been to the Bronx and I’ve been here for six months and I’ve been to all fbrs already so it’s just like it’s a lot of weird prejudices quite obviously pre prejudices and like it’s in the equivalent is just like a lot of people from the north side that say they haven’t been to the southide it’s very much like that kind of attitude and um it’s and I’m finding a lot of those kind of parallels and you know it’s pretty impossible not to compare the two now that like I made like this big change and I would say like bushwig definitely compares to Logan Square in both its um gentrification and overall like the kind of vibe and the kind of stuff that we have around here it certainly feels like I’m I’m still kind of at home in Logan Square which is like both comforting but also the gentrification aspect is not great and I I know what I look like and I know I’m I’m part of the problem but um it does it does feel nice to kind of like be in a place that feels familiar to me what what are the I’m trying to think the the name is escaping me right now what are the like little corner deli shops called in New York um so the one around the corner for me it’s like literally called Zaza they have like a neon sign that said Zaza but a lot of them will just be like um just very generic names I mean like the there’s like I’ve heard of like just regular grocery stores what do they called in New York also that yeah just deli okay gotcha yeah yeah and you’ll you’ll find a lot of just like delies but then like you’ll you’ll get to the counter and you’ll see like a guy smoking a joint and be like and that’s like the the guy that I normally get my cigarettes home he’s like hey I also sell joints and I I unfortunately was just like hey you’re barking up the wrong tree like I’m I’m getting it left and right for free all the time yeah so what is it like well if you’re getting it for free I hope you’re able to answer this question what is it like as a consumer because in Illinois as you remember it [ __ ] sucked as a consumer you’re talking like $60 an aid and upwards of course with taxes um and it I will say that since you’ve left I have seen prices start to compress as new operators come online like for example I’ve seen ounces listed at like 140 bucks which is just $40 more than Michigan so uh you know we’re getting there but obviously the the choices still aren’t there um yeah I just wanted to ask you what is it like oh Bodega that’s the word I was looking for Bodega yes yes yes very much that uhuh what what is it like as a consumer do you feel that it’s more consumer friendly like is it cheaper to buy weed better weed too um the tax is not as obnoxious as it is in Illinois but you still have like you know Baseline without tax $50 eights and it’s kind of funny that you bring up the Michigan thing because I and especially talking about my co-workers have you know grew up here Pennsylvania is kind of our Michigan equivalent really yeah which I found really interesting but yeah that’s what that’s what I noticed that um yeah one one guy was one of my co-workers was telling me he was going to Pennsylvania to like pick up all this stuff and yeah and it from like comparing the prices it definitely seems like yeah it’s kind of like the Michigan equivalent to what y’all have back there yeah do you uh so do you shop though much at the the kind of gry Market Deli or the have you ever shopped at any bodos or anything like that yeah when I was when I was in between jobs and I was kind of going off like the little savings that I had that was an excellent way for me to save money and like literally right around the corner um the the one dispensary that like I did go to that I didn’t that I haven’t worked at is this place called uh oh God I always want to say um public works but it’s like oh God it’s not Union score travel agency it has like a very generic name um oh God I’m blanking right now um public housing works Housing Works is what it’s called um they are in you’re still there okay okay the thing that I really liked about them a they were the first dispensary to open in New York period they’re based in Manhattan they’re like right off of Broadway um very very dope area to walk around in as well um it like in a awesome that they’re inv they’re really involved with like Community stuff and um they actually like they walk the walk when it comes to that stuff like I know like Cresco certainly liked to do that when I was working at Sunny Side pretending to care about like queer communities and pretending to care about like people that have been in prisoned for cannabis when it’s really just kind of like a shallow tax write off this definitely they they’re really really genuine the staff there is really awesome I uh I was telling them you know we were comparing our like State Industries um doing a little Ted AED and and so far like the quality of stuff I would say pretty comparable to what you’re getting in Illinois um I would say maybe a little bit better I did say when I first moved here I’m just like oh this stuff is so much better like well but I was still pretty new to the market but now that I’ve had like a good amount of experience with the stuff here I’m just like oh it’s it’s pretty on par like the the shine of It kind of wore up I was like oh it’s pretty on par with the stuff I’ve gotten in Illinois and the um the dispensary that I work at now we we very much sell a lot of the GTI stuff um the um the select stuff like all that so I’m pretty familiar with um the stuff that we’re selling now which is nice so I’m not just jump into stuff I didn’t know and I’m not just like selling because now I I work at a medical only dispensary so I really have to know I really have to be on my game because people are coming in to get their medicine it’s not just for fun anymore so it it and that’s what I really really like about the medical industry out here it’s Illinois is very much a pay-to-play operation and I’m sure you’ve you’ve noticed that when it comes to getting your medical card like especially when I got mine like I just called a guy and said you know I get migraines and he’s like oh you have 200 bucks cool here’s your weed here it’s like you have you’re going through a whole luckily I got hooked up with a card through my employer now but here you’re meeting with the doctor they’re really getting to the root of what’s going on with you and they’re giving you recommendations for how you should consume and even when we’re dispensing to our medical patients we’re putting like a we need a actual licensed farmacist on the premises if we’re going to be selling anything and then people can do consultations with pharmacist if they for life with better or if they don’t trust us and they want you know that like hardend medical consultation they can meet with our pharmacist but um and even before we’re dispensing it we’re putting on stickers that give instructions on like how to do everything and it like definitely feels more for lack of a better word like a legit medical operation than how Illinois has been treating it yeah the the pharmacist on staff is is super interesting you know what really caught my attention was the fact that you said you you basically already know the products so you know is it pretty much the same operators uh in in the state like GTI Cresco cure Leaf yeah yeah Cresco thankfully on their way out but yeah uh cure Leaf ver life all that good stuff GTI we and actually we’re just taking on like a big big uh ship made of GTI stuff which is still like pretty new to the people around here and and I I found that the GTI stuff that I’ve been getting here like gotten a few Rhythm AIDS of like animal face and headcracker and things like that and I I kind of like it a little better than it’s still same process still indoor grown here and things like that but I something about it like I I’ve like it’s been a strains have been a little more consistent and not even just like testing High because if you’re in the no that doesn’t really mean [ __ ] and a lot of people can just game that anyway but I found a lot of their stuff is like way more turp heavy and just a lot more consistent less dry than what I was getting in Illinois so it kind of seems seems like the Growers here too are taking a little more care in how they’re doing stuff it’s not just like a big rush to get everything on a shelf and just like get it in selling it to someone that’s interesting to hear that’s interesting to hear and you said though that the prices are pretty well uh on par at least legally maybe they’re cheaper when you go with a like a you know gray Market option yeah yeah especially yeah if you are just if you’re a red customer here and you’re you’re honestly better off just going to like a deli and they’ll and they’ll have like and most of them have like a little menu with like all the things they have like multiple strains like they’re their offerings are pretty pretty solid for for what their operations are they’ll you can walk in and they’ll have like four different strains listed there and they’ll have like their little I try to stay away from like and I try to tell other people let stay away from like the gummies and the Vapes just because you don’t know what’s going in that at least with like the weed I don’t know it maybe that’s just what I’ve been Gran in condition in my mind which is like oh it’s just weed that’s what I’ve been getting from random people all the time that’s probably fine but yeah Vapes and gummies from like a great Market kind of ski me out a little bit especially with like the gummies and stuff like that just with the dosages because I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories maybe even been a part of a horror story where like yeah you you’re given something and you’re told it’s this much and then you eat it and it’s definitely not what it was as advertised so I do try to go um more legit on those kind of things so then I feel better about just like how I’m dosing myself and what I’m putting into my body yeah yeah I’m I just looked up a random uh rise in the uh in Manhattan and I’m just showing this for our listeners like you said the prices really are just about on target with Illinois still so this is medical mind you folks uh $60 a gram for concentrate it’s looking like uh you know $508 for flow uh $70 or $80 for seven grams um you know you can get some pre-rolls a five pack which 35 so some shorties for 30 bucks looks like cartridges are about on par with Illinois go ahead yeah I will say to my dispensaries uh benefit our our sales and our loyalty program is so good that like you would be hard pressed to pay full price for anything during like any time that you shop there like are are Lo program is really really excellent compared to the other ones that I’ve seen so you’d be really hard pressed to pay for something full price if you’re coming to our dispo just because we both the sales and the Loyalty program are just like choice hell yeah hell yeah well um want to get back to this but it’s just interesting I want to play this for our audience just another perspective this is actually it was interesting I didn’t expect to have this conversation it was during uh our legal sex uh Series so folks if you missed that you can go to the memo.com seex Fantastic series thank you amazing amazing series sorry to interrupt no it’s okay it’s okay uh I I interviewed an amazing podcaster her name is Caitlyn Bailey and again I was planning to talk you know sex with her not necessarily cannabis but she’s also from New York and she had this to say about New York this is a interesting clip but I got my medal marijuana card so that I could shop at one of the licensed uh retailers that’s here in New York and in order to do that I have to pass like six unlicensed places that you know probably have fine stuff and seem to be doing a good job I just I wanted something in particular and sort of went to do that and was um not surprised but disheartened to hear the establishment kind of talking about the unlicensed places and and I totally get it right because they went through all of the hoops and like their customers have to get cards and it’s a whole riger roll and it feels like they’re fighting uphill because they have to do it this way well you know in the meantime my corner store is just like sativa and right and so I get it but it it really does pit the sort of like criminalized element of the industry against the legalized and regulated one and it distracts us from our common enemy which is the um people that would ever arrest us for doing any of this because it’s never been a never been a problem to finish her sentence uh she was obviously making the double on Tandra point that legal sex work and and you know legalized cannabis has never um but yeah it was just an amazing kind of tangental example you know what I mean so yeah and and she was really on the money with that and especially in hearing from because I when I came on to um and I’ll just say the name status it ter terrible company first and foremost they they want to say and this is the place I was working at in the Bronx they say that they are female-owned what they really are that’s just decoration they really just slapped one of their wives’ names onto the Le essentially so then they could say that I’ve never talked to her I when the pl the day the place opened I saw her for like two minutes um she never said hi to me never had a conversation with her and I was the assistant manager of her store and she and like going on from there like she had little to zero involvement and as far as what I’ve saw and I I was pretty high up on the ladder so I feel like I would have known if she was actually doing anything but it really seemed like this was this was the man the man operation and that very much tied into why I left and um they and it was really funny because I I think when we last spoke I was like really excited to go to a smaller place and it seemed like they were going to care about me more I was nearly assaulted like not 10 feet away from the dispensary like leaving that place and when I told them that and as and I wasn’t all I was asking for was an earlier shift because I was the main closing manager all I asked for was a was an earlier shift not even that drastic from where I was I asked to be 11 to S which is not it didn’t seem like I was asking for a whole lot what they did when I when I asked for that is dug their heel dug their dug their heels in more about that about oh our leads aren’t ready to close by themselves they very much were they these people were not very current on the on what was happening in our store and that was another frustration that I had with them where I was voicing all these frustrations were like we we were actually able to accept credit cards for a short amount of time but the rub with that was you essentially have to give over like your information as like quote unquote collateral so it and I kept making the joke it feels like you’re putting a mortgage down for a house when really you’re getting an age so you have to put down you know your address your phone number like your name and all this stuff that like and it’s very prevent in Illinois people don’t even like showing their IDs to get in the building yeah so what makes you think that they’re going to want to like log a system full of their information just so they can pick up some weed and to our point that we were tiying earlier when they can just go around the corner and say like hey I want this and it’s done why I think they’re doing that I’m gonna guess uh so I had a experience in Illinois where they were accepting credit cards at aate you’re saying they accept like legit credit cards like yeah okay yeah I’ve heard of that before and people can Google this um the company name was links ly NX I don’t know what you’re doing and I don’t you don’t have to say it especially it was pretty parallel to that because we were bouncing around um with between that one and then the one that we ended up going with that also PS crapped out on us like two months into using it so we had to get rid of it yeah well it’s a good thing you didn’t go with links because just briefly my story is that uh I put it I was using it a dispensary you know uh [ __ ] it I’ll just say it the Sunny Side near me was doing links and um I was using the card and but I was being very responsible about it because I was like I don’t want to like put too much on my credit card card you know but I was like to a certain point it was like two weeks and the the charges still hadn’t come up yet so I was like [ __ ] I I really don’t want to buy more but I kind of do because now I can use my credit card but I don’t want all these charges to hit at once and they never got taken out one of my friends bought over like $2,000 worth of product and never ever got charged they ultimately took the links away and if you Google links now I believe they’re being sued by many cannabis companies because they never like actually transacted the money so whatever that business is they should be thankful they didn’t do that cuz yeah and this is why we don’t have them because it’s not insured like a it’s not federally legal you know to sell like Delta 9 weed but like yeah it’s not insured there’s no safety net so there’s like why would a business especially like put their money into something in the hands of someone with no safety net right now that makes sense though why they’re collecting that information because it’s almost like they have a tab on you and they’re like if their money goes through they’re good but if it doesn’t I be to call them yeah and that was the reasoning why like when I asked my jam I’m just like why are we just going so hard on this like customers don’t like it it’s a lengthy process it just we made so few transactions that way a lot of people were just paying with cash so we were just in and especially in the neighborhood we were in I mean people would come in and get a zip every once in a while but it’s mostly people coming in and just like oh yeah I just want a join or just like oh I just want like you know I just want a Graham and that’s always what we sold out of first is because they weren’t reading the room and were just like trying to push all these concentrates and just like all this like and that’s what they started out first they’re just like oh yeah we are we’re going to be like a bougie kind of kind of cannabis place like upscale blah blah blah and that’s why these uniforms too you don’t need to live in the Bronx to know what the vibe of the Bronx is what they what these owners had my employees wearing they’re wearing white button-up t-shirts or white button-up shirts collar shirts with a black apron and black pants they look like they work in a meat market and like they I’ve heard customers clown on them they make fun of them for the things that they have to wear yeah I’d wear a sport jacket and like yeah buttonup it was it was very very silly I felt like such a clown the entire time and they yeah they just had this veneer of just yeah we’re going to be upscale and like all this stuff and then they tried to put that into their inventory and we’re realizing oh people aren’t buying it because that’s not that’s not the vibe of this neighborhood and they eventually started giving these not I hate to say cheaper but you know more affordable vendors a chance and once you know it those are flying off the shelves so there it’s just like so many like budding heads over so many little things like that that like seem like common sense but just like this was their first business that they were all in on together so they’re very much like our way or the highway and it just like and and it’s not going any better from them because when I was leaving and this was the absolute funniest thing they hired me because they were going to move uh they were going to be a right next to Yankee Stadium and if you recall I worked at the study side that was right by Wrigleyville literally during my interview I pointed the camera to wrigly Bale and I was just like you want to know why I’m qualified here you go like I I know the exact Vibe of what you um what the business is going to be so when I got actually when I got the offer they told me okay so we’re going to be at this temp location for right now we plan on opening um July 6th we plan on being um at the Yankee Stadium Place by the Fall like I think they told me September I was just like okay sweet so we right now and where we started and where they are still right now is off of Treemont Avenue which is even to Residents in the Bronx not a great place in the Bronx to be um and when I was leaving there we they were like very much being evicted from the guy that they’re renting the building from because they very much overstayed their welcome and they and they every time we kept asking because of course my employees were asking me like when are we moving and I would pass along to them and they would have no answer for me me and they still don’t have an answer they’re still there and I don’t think it’s ever going to happen and I think at this point now they’ve just like mismanage so many things and they’re just hemorrhaging so much money that I I don’t think the business is going to survive past this year yeah what do you what’s your sense on the ground like do you I I don’t know if you remember but it seems like a lot of people in Illinois are upset and angry with the selection and prices and frankly most of them choose to go as we might say Legacy the Legacy route they like find a nice little professional unlicensed dealer in the city and you know that does delivery and all this stuff and even has menus online you know it’s sometimes I’ve seen um what’s your sense in New York do you think that more people are shopping legally or uh in the kind of Gray Zone oh you can take one even just going up and down my street right now there are so many stickers with QR codes for exactly what you’re talking about so that that’s your answer right there people I think like I would say the older crowd is more hyped about the more like oh you’re going into a bright shiny Little Apple store to get your weed but the people like you know our generation and younger are still like very much down for you know these gray operations and go and not going through these like Mom and Pop or these like actual stores yeah yeah because oftentimes when you go into those small stores I bet you The Vibes better like music’s playing the Weeds on display which we can get to the point actually we that we got together on you know there’s there’s an upside and a downside to that but really quick though you know the vibe is just probably better at some of those dispensaries because they don’t have to comply with the within the strictures of the law which feel very like I don’t know it makes makes the place feel like a DMV almost I know I know some people in Illinois abely mess you know some I have I’ve been to some dispensaries where it’s like okay this feels more like what I think of when I think of a dispensary but still um and it’s very much the vibe of these corporate dispensaries and like the DM we’re like we’re here to get you in and get you out like this is not a place for you to hang out and and that’s what like even like going to this place around the corner when I like even the first time I bought an eth from them they’re just like oh they they opened it for me and I was just like my heart I was just like cuz I’m not used to that and they’re just like yeah you can spell it if you want I was like oh [ __ ] okay like and then he let me like smell all the stuff and it it even though it was like a quotequote great Market thing it felt more like what the experience should be yeah yeah and one of the things you had said that I referenced a bit ago uh which I actually agree with you on is there is a factor especially I think it’s set in for a lot of people postco where there’s these videos of people like in Colorado with their like heads in the jar and you’re like wait a minute I don’t want to smoke that um yeah so that’s the one side of I I think that falls on the operator they got to be like no here’s the show jar you know like where you can put your [ __ ] face in it but here’s the like the bucket for the people you know what I mean right right right and and that’s the thing it’s just like yeah I I and I’ve been to some like dispensaries in Denver and in Portland where yeah they do have the jars and I it does ski me out a little bit because yeah that’s all I see is just like those people and like all their hairs and like all their various bottle things falling in there and it’s just like yeah no I don’t I don’t want to I don’t want to smoke that I don’t want to put that anywhere near my lips no I mean I’ve even witnessed in Colorado for example like you know somebody puts a jar up to somebody’s face and they like gr go to grab a nug just like you would maybe at a home and they like put it up to their nose and like whoa whoa whoa we didn’t say you could pick the nug and the person’s like oh and they like put the the nug back in the jar and it’s like and they kind of look around like did anybody see that and yes I saw that um you know what I mean that probably happens that probably happens multiple times a day you know what I mean if you’re doing that absolutely so you gotta be even careful even in my medical dispo like I I still have to tell my customers like no you can’t open this in the store like you gotta take it outside yeah like I say though I really do think that it’s a critical part of the purchasing process but they need to operators need to be better about it it’s this is the way I look at it let’s talk about a real Deli like I live near a real Deli and when you want to try the cheese or meat like they give you a slice off of the cheese or meat that you’re looking at but afterwards like I watched the dude he like sanitizes the blade that he cut it with like you know there’s like protocols to make sure that like there’s no cross contamination but you also can still get an idea for what you’re purchasing which is just I think that’s like the best thing about purchasing produce um although I’ve been told so let me finish the thought and I’ll get to that uh produce and like meat and cheese you can like smell and at times taste it although I’ve been told that uh because I always say that I whenever I purchase grapes like I feel the grapes or like even strawberries like I’ll look at them and like feel them to make sure they’re not like mushy you know like old and sometimes times but only in the case of grapes I’ll like pop a grape in my mouth and be like yeah those are [ __ ] dank I was told by a friend a close friend they insisted to me that that is shoplifting so apparently I’m a criminal um but I I view it as like a a critical part of the purchasing process for some products like let me smell it let me feel it let me sample it you know and see the first thing on my mind while you were saying that I’m just like how many people have touched that grape before you put it in your mouth that’s the thing with produce totally you can and like I think I was saying before in our conversation you can take your veggies home you can wash them you can’t you can’t throw weed in the sink like we there’s no real like sanitation process so it’s just like yeah like once you open it like that’s it and that’s what I was wrapping around to it’s like you know I’ll try that grape knowing that I’m like eating like basically cross-contaminated grape but getting a feel for the grape yeah I’m a I’m a dog I got that dog in me but anyways uh gremlin anyways uh like I take it home and then wash it but to your point and that’s what I was going to wrap around with unfortunately with cannabis that is not an option from what I understand so like unless you want to buy a little microwave like the the the cultivators in Illinois and other states do but I’m just joking that was just a remediation joke um but you know what I’m saying like there’s no way to your point that you brought up like there is no way to clean this like you would with produce you know that you purchase for example so exactly and like and that’s why like I I hope that like people don’t misconstrue me when I when I say I’m in favor of like a lot of that prepackaged stuff just because like I came up in culinary I’ve I’ve had you know I’ve had the surf safe cerification since I was like 16 years old like that stuff is very much like important to me and always on my mind and why I’ve never taken a cruise in my entire life because they just seem like floating petri dishes to me it’s just I am very conscious of that stuff all the time and it just yeah and that doesn’t stop with my cannabis oh yeah yeah well said well said um it’s interesting I’ll be talking to a Cannabis Testing Lab here in the future hopefully a few and um I’m curious since you are like conscientious about that do you think that like remediated cannabis should be legal like do you have any concerns about con cons assuming remediated cannabis um and I guess I’m not too familiar with the process on that I don’t I’m not too not really I’m only Vaguely Familiar with some techniques but and I personally am not concerned uh but I know some people that are you know um so like because there are different forms I’ll tell you like my Surface level knowledge so there’s like IR radiation which everybody likes to talk about it sounds super scary it’s like the idea that I referenced earlier of like kind of microwaving the product if people want to Google it the I mean this is you know legit stuff there’s a company devoted to it I think it’s called rad X so that’s an example of a company sounds like sounds like something Fallout four right doesn’t it sound like like a termination thing or something post Oppenheimer World very scary right and then there’s um you know there’s other forms like ozone remediation which which some companies are calling kill steps now we’ve actually interviewed one company that that particularly calls it a kill step versus remediation because they are you do it before you even send it to testing so it’s a kill step you’re not remediating because you’re doing it beforehand um so you put it in this Barrel we actually I actually visited their fact their like headquarters in Colorado when I went one time they invited me and it’s like this big ass Barrel that you dump your weed into when you Harvest it and it just like blasts it with Ozone gas and it apparently sanitizes the product and makes it so that you are guaranteed to pass testing that’s why they call it kill steps um apparently so the the expert that came on and that’s what what I’ll reference for listeners and even to you if you want to see more her name is Carly her name was or she was from Willow so that’s the company that does the ozone remediation I’ve done a few episodes with Willow so check out those if you want to learn more but they also talk about other forms which we didn’t get too deep into so I’m just going to mention them so that people can you know do their own research apparently some companies dip their weed into hydrogen peroxide which I’m like w how does that even um thatc me out and there are there are even forms as simple as just washing um like if you have bugs in the Cannabis like sometimes people will literally just run it through water because if you think about it I mean it grows outdoors so like uh I will say though cannabis is very sticky so sometimes that doesn’t always get all the bugs out but anyways that’s what I know about remediation um not much but you know just enough so that maybe you all can if you want to learn more that’s how you Google that’s that’s interesting yeah I that’s something I definitely would delve deeper into and like to that point with like microwaving brought back to a point that I was thinking of in like the Cosmetics industry I follow this account that kind of like rehabs like broken cosmetics and in order to sanitize it they stick it into like basically this old microwave thing it like basically kills all the germs yeah so it seems like yeah it seems like kind of the same process but yeah using like the word like IR radiated probably like scares people a little bit yeah and I should be clear yeah it’s it sounds like it’s commonly used with like a lot of different foods um in Canada they do require I believe like there to be a rura symbol on onions potatoes wheat flour whole wheat flour or ground spices or no those are the ones that are approved for radiation and sale um so that will happen I’m sure in the United States as well I’ve heard um but then there’s also the idea that there is um ionizing radiation which can be used to treat fresh and frozen raw ground beef um so you know I say that all to say that it’s not exclusive to the Cannabis industry folks look into it it you know there are many different foods that are mediated and it’s the idea it’s it’s so that often times it can keep a shelf shelf life you know yeah um and it’s the same exact idea in fact with cannabis because if you harvest cannabis and we’ve even talked to licensed operators uh New Era I’ll just say that because they were one that that talked about it I think that was this was on the chillino podcast they they spoke about the fact that Illinois testing standards are so strict that yeah they have to like overd dry the product just so that it yeah doesn’t become moldy sitting in the jar so um unless you’re Verano yeah yeah I say that with the Verano be neon that’s hilarious so yeah um I don’t know I just it’s interesting how like cannabis it’s almost like yeah imagine trying to take lettuce like a a Le a wet leafy substance and putting it into a jar and hoping that it can sit on the shelf for like more than a month or something and it’s like it’s not gonna happen well what you were seeing earlier like um the first list of foods that you named were all like typically dried products so it like makes the same like cannabis itself is also a dried product so that that like connected it in my brain so like it makes more sense now to me like okay that’s what you do like dried product yeah peanuts I believe are a big one like I think like all peanuts just like to make sure that they don’t come so anyways folks definitely research this cuz I want to reiterate that I just have surface level knowledge and I want to be clear that I am not by any means saying and I’ve talked to a little of people that actually know about radiation itself they tell me that like it’s not it’s not like it’s radioactive weed it’s not like you’re going to smoke it and glow green or something like it’s again because it’s used in different food practices and stuff uh some make the argument that it’s negligible and some make the argument that they don’t really care if it’s negligible they don’t want to subject themselves to it again I don’t really view it as a big deal because I’m like I’m probably consuming so many remediated Goods on a day-to-day basis I don’t even know I say this as I like drink like gallons of Red Bull on The Daily and like and I wouldn’t mind like smoking something that would make me glow green I’m thinking of like Mr Burns in that one xiles episode of The Simpsons like that doesn’t sound too bad yeah that would be pretty cool honestly for Halloween or something be superly exactly so anyways well what else what else is going on in New York I mean I I did just see that um it was a really funny tweet I saw like the New York regulatory body I don’t know the exact name they tweeted out that like proposed rules for dispensaries were released and the proposed rules for hom grow were released and somebody replied and said uh [ __ ] you I’ll do what I want I thought that was kind of funny um yeah and that ties in like and and I and I know I’ve only I’ve been here less than a year but I still say we it’s just like yeah and that’s just the way anyone operates with any anything we are very much like a individualized type of person where it’s just like yeah no like rules rules kind of like don’t really apply and it doesn’t really matter what it is whether it’s paying for the Subway or yeah selling weed like it doesn’t really I always like to say you’re writing rules for people that never followed the rules in the first place exactly they’re they’re yeah they’re a veneer of our society that we have over here and I’ve been saying to everyone like New York is literally just in an asylum that we’ve all collectively checked ourselves into and that we have like a little bit of like dare I say Stockholm syndrome with because just like I I’ve been coming here over my life scattered over the years but yeah I I love it here I I plan on dying here it’s I only I only did so in Chicago unless I see uh advertising through the bear that’s when like my in Chicago but yeah I I love it here and that’s like like I said with like the deli Bodega culture that’s like it and I don’t see why Chicago won’t do it well and I know why it’s because it’s Illinois and they’re very much and that’s what I love most about New York is you’re hard pressed to find chains out here like whether it’s fast food or whatever it everything is so Mom and pot based and very small business and that’s I love that the most about this city it’s just like yeah of course you’ll find your chains but yeah Chicago is just very much a Capital C corporate City and you’re just so hard pressed to find like the bits here that like make it super charming and just like more for the people yeah yeah I’d love to go to New York sometime I love please visit yeah absolutely I’ll have to see if there’s like this cool and I’ve been meaning to go there’s like this place called THC it’s called the house of cannabis and it’s essentially I believe it’s in Manhattan it’s basically just like this big like weed Museum about the um the history and pop and like the pop culture of it and I think there’s a consumption Lounge I could be wrong but seems super dope and I’ve been being to go but just like that seems like a like a friend activity and I know maybe like five people out here so I’ve been trying to get every bring everyone from Chicago out here I’m just like please come visit yeah when I come out I’ll definitely holler at you and maybe we can also do something like this I’ll play this clip um the meeting is until 3: but I always like to come to New York a little bit early and hit some of my favorite haunts like right here is my favorite New York piece of joint borrow I’m going to go get me a New York slice hell yeah baby sorry I honestly I haven’t I almost went to Sorrows as a joke but then I I felt like I would immediately be like ejected like like a like the end of the curse it’s like a trap out of New York yeah it’s a to get IDI out of New York yeah Brook Brooklyn dollar slices for life especially when I lost my job like I was surviving like solely on like my dollar slices from from around the corner for a long time and just like really cheap Bagels all all all the cliches yeah I’ll have to the gry water hot dogs in Manhattan beautiful you’ll have to give me the lowdown on things like that because that’s like that would be one of the main reasons I’m coming to New York is just to eat like a [ __ ] New Yorker oh yeah well we’ll get A8 manh hand dog with just ketchup on it’ be great just ketchup on it see Chicago I offended I offended many many a friend back home I posted a picture I’m just like this is better than any hot dog in chicag I guess I’m a New Yorker at heart because I actually prefer so I didn’t know this is how ignorant I am a few years ago I went to New Orleans and usually I just eat seafood in New Orleans but somebody wanted to go to this hot dog joint and I was like all right i’ never really like I always just like made like hot dogs or BRS at home you know what I mean I’ve never really gone out and got a hot dog so I didn’t really know what to expect out of the experience I’m like how do I just get like a hot dog that I make at home so I just like I don’t know I was high and you know how it is when everybody has their order ready and you still haven’t found one so I was just like [ __ ] it give me a Chicago style hot dog you know and so they bring out this hot dog and it just has mustard on it and I’m just like whoa yeah I didn’t think I couldn’t it was really tough for me I didn’t and I know that’s going to offend Chicagoans CU that apparently in Chicago that is the way to have a hot dog but I prefer the I’m not a mustard guy I hate I hate mustard yeah I’m okay with mustard with ketchup but mustard alone just to me it’s like this is the face I make when I see it just like I’ve I’ve eaten a hot dog with just ketchup on it in Wrigley Fields I don’t care and I told everyone they give me a dirty look to grow up yeah that’s awesome and same with the pizza like thin crust pizza for life and even like and this has become like pretty wide don’t thing like Chicago people are that crazy about deep dish it’s kind of just like a tourist thing we’re all about like the tavern style and that’s why I was telling people here I’m just like yeah no we’re kind of B on par with New York about how we are with our pizza it’s just a different shape hell yeah yeah it is interesting how for granted I take Pizza in the midwest because we recently went to Nevada for that sex series and we we like visited at brothel and everything and one night I really wanted Pizza like and you know like in Illinois like I can just always be like like search up pizza and there’s like six different places nearby you know but in [ __ ] Nevada dude there was two places and they were both like three hours away yeah what harded toiz yeah yeah yeah like oh yeah I went to Denver and could like I went to so many different pizza places only found one that was like okay you know okay but in Denver going back back to Hot Dogs they have a place there’s a place in Denver called I think it’s called rattlesnake Dan at a rattlesnake in rabbit hot dog there phenomenal Stone to the Bone it was so good they have all different kinds of they have like yeah like venison hot dogs and stuff like that it went they years ago but yeah I’m pretty sure it’s called rail state dance anyone’s everever going to Denver like check that place out it’s dope as hell they’re like a late night kind of joint and really really awesome SP spot yeah yeah damn I have to now I have to find it’s Redeemer pizza that’s the place I went to and uh and and I I was like this name is very apropo because that’s what I was thinking I went to so many different pizza places in Denver and they were horrible and then Redeemer was the Redeemer um a little bit hard on parking but if you make sure to get there like you can get a drink you can sit down they’ve got slices I recommend getting a full Pizza though uh the full pizza was the move and uh it’s delicious so H yeah hell yeah well cool um any other thoughts uh things that we didn’t talk about with regard to New York or any anything else you wanted to say well while we were on air no I think we pretty much nailed everything sweet yeah covered all bases um hell yeah not too bad for two for two people that have already probably been spoken all day yeah well and had literally we all we literally messaged each other was just like we’re like a few messages about deli style you want to do a podcast and then yeah yeah it’s just like hell yeah always done always down to talk to you buddy yeah so anyways well uh I’ll definitely reach out in the future but if if anything comes up between now and then you you got my uh message you can message me so yeah yeah absolutely cool well folks I hope you found as much value in this conversation as I did maybe it’ll give you a better uh idea of what to expect if you go to the Big Apple the concrete jungle wet dream tomato I say um nothing you can’t do yes yes so folks uh take care and once again I hope you have found uh value in this episode we’ll see you in the next one bye bye