Recreational wave challenges The Reef in Detroit
Annalise Frank of Crain’s Detroit Business has a great feature exploring the challenges The Reef medical dispensary is facing as medical marijuana sales decline:
Cannabis businesses in Detroit are limited to medical sales for now, meaning it can be easier for customers to head north to Hazel Park or southwest to River Rouge for their flower.
It’s been an undeniable strain on places like The Reef, which has been on Eight Mile in Detroit since 2016, long before voters approved recreational marijuana in 2018. Rush Hasan, the company’s chief operating officer, said that by 2018 the store was seeing gangbuster sales, with people waiting in line up to 45 minutes to enter.
The Reef has since expanded to Muskegon Heights for on the west side of the state and is becoming vertically integrated.
Widespread legal use brought the promise of a booming pot industry for Detroit, but its ordinance governing how recreational cannabis would be sold to the masses, and who would be able to do that selling, has been held up in litigation since last year over the legality of its rigorous equity program. It’s unclear when an updated ordinance may be introduced to Detroit City Council, let alone when one may take effect.
…”We want to stay open as much as possible, but also with the increase in competition and especially, the real sad part about it is, Detroit is surrounded by all recreational cities … it’s literally wrapping all of Detroit with recreational cities and it’s taking away all these users from Detroit … because patients, they don’t necessarily need to renew their cards anymore if they have access to a recreational shop right where they live,” Hasan said.
Read on for lots more including their new 27,000-square-foot cultivation facility in Warren & check out The Reef on their website, Instagram & Facebook.
photos courtesy Find the Reef on Facebook
