Recreational Marijuana Crosses The Finish Line In Orleans

ORLEANS – Before a crowd of eager onlookers last week, Rick Francolini fished out a $100 bill from his pocket. With it, he helped cement a little bit of town history.

Speaking during an invitation-only event at Seaside Cannabis Co. on Lots Hollow Road, Francolini called himself an accidental cannabis advocate. But on Dec. 14, he made the first legal purchase from a licensed adult use recreational marijuana shop in Orleans.

“If [Seaside partner] Dave Currier is ready to make some sales, I’m ready to do some buying,” Francolini said to applause from the estimated 50 people in attendance.

The first sale was a moment heavy with symbolism, marking the end of a long back and forth journey spanning six years to bring recreational marijuana to town. And for Seaside’s chief operating officer Spencer Knowles, there was no better person to make that first purchase than Francolini, whose efforts to open up Orleans to cannabis date back to the town’s earliest conversations on the matter in 2017.

“Rick is going to do the first purchase, because nobody’s more deserving than you are,” Knowles told Francolini at the event.

The celebratory event, which was followed by an after party at The Alley Bowling and BBQ, invited a small contingent of residents and town officials who were instrumental in bringing the town’s first recreational marijuana shop to fruition.

“What we did last night, those folks deserve it,” Knowles said when reached the day after the event. “They deserved to be part of something special, and it gave us an opportunity to really kick the tires hard.”

“It was very emotional,” Francolini said when reached by phone after the event. “It was very satisfying, it was very gratifying. And it’s going to be even more gratifying to see how much revenue is being generated, how many employees are being employed. The town of Orleans is talking about economic development and vitality, and there was a lot of vitality in that room last night.”

Seaside Cannabis is one of two businesses that were awarded a license by the town to operate a retail marijuana establishment in town. A second company, Ember Gardens, has plans to open up a store at 46 Route 6A.

At the new store, customers will be able to select from and educate themselves about a variety of different items, from flower products to infused beverages, oils and both recreational and more therapeutic-based products. The store also features a deli-style “bud bar,” where customers can learn more about the store’s inventory, as well as space for programs and for vendors to come in and sell their products.

But the road toward bringing marijuana to Orleans goes back further than Seaside’s receipt of its license from the select board in June 2021. Conversations about allowing recreational marijuana in town started as early as 2017. The following year at the annual town meeting, an article seeking to ban the sale of recreational marijuana in Orleans failed 152 to 80, opening the doors for a future business to possibly come to town.

Francolini, who calls himself a “light cannabis user,” was one of the earliest proponents for allowing the sale of marijuana in town, citing the investments that are being made in the industry at the state level.

“To have a state embrace this opportunity and embrace normalization and have our town opt out made zero sense to me,” he said. Francolini also championed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana, while also noting its impacts are “benign” compared to those associated with liquor and over-the -counter and prescription medications.

But while efforts to ban recreational marijuana failed, the victory proved fleeting. In the fall of 2018, advocates came to a special town meeting ready to adopt local zoning to allow retail marijuana. But a citizens petition article seeking to bring the ban back passed 270 to 257, bringing efforts in support of marijuana back to square one.

What stung more, Francolini said, was that the measure only passed by 13 votes. To this day, he said he’s confident there were more people in support of marijuana than were against it. But in a time before the introduction of electronic voting, he said some supporters were afraid to publicly back the proposal.

“We had those votes,” he said. “We had way more than those votes. The problem was that those voters weren’t prepared to stand up at a town meeting and vote for it. Because they were concerned about alienating their neighbors, alienating their friends and most importantly alienating their clients.”

Two years later, local advocates, now with the support of the regional advocacy group Cannabis of Cape Cod, made another play at overturning the ban.

“The outcome of that was a huge push that included flyers, Facebook, everything to just get out the vote,” Knowles told attendees at the Dec. 14 event.

At an outdoor annual town meeting at Nauset Beach in October 2020, the ban was overturned. Francolini said the introduction of electronic voting at town meeting made the difference, allowing residents to vote their conscience with confidence.

Some legal hurdles remained to be cleared, however. After the select board voted to award licenses to and enter into host community agreements with Seaside and Ember Gardens in June 2021, two companies that were passed over for a license filed injunctions against the town challenging the select board’s process and methods for making their decision. Those injunctions were denied, as was an appeal of the denial.

Now three years after the fall 2020 vote, Seaside is officially open for business. For Knowles and his partners — A.J. Luke, David Currier, Adam Higgins and Tim McNamara — the long journey toward opening made last week’s first sale all the more memorable.

“There’s just a lot of excitement,” Knowles said. “A lot of support, a lot of energy. As I said before, that’s what drives us and keeps us pushing hard.”

Seaside will continue its “soft opening” through the Christmas holiday, Knowles said. The shop was open Wednesday and will be open today (Thursday) from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Friday and Saturday, the shop will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., followed by 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve. From Dec. 27 onward, the shop will be open Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

“From there we’re going to work it through, and eventually we’re going to ramp up to seven days a week,” Knowles said.

Seaside also recently joined the Orleans Chamber of Commerce, of which Knowles was recently named a member of the board of directors. He said joining the chamber represents the best way of “normalizing” recreational marijuana into the local economy.

“For Orleans, which considers itself an economic hub, a retailing hub of the lower Cape, it’s one more reason to bring people here,” Francolini said. “And once they are here, there’s the opportunity for that trickle down effect for sure.”

Email Ryan Bray at ryan@capecodchronicle.com