Business booming after first week of recreational pot sales

2018 has been a green year for Nick Hughes and others at Cathedral City Care Collective, one of the first dispensaries in California to sell recreational marijuana.

“We knew it was history,” Hughes said. “To us, the hard thing is terminology. Because we’re used to patients, and not customers. Now, everyone is a customer.”

Ever since opening up to the new adult-use crowd Jan. 1, he said his business has quadrupled compared to when they were selling just medicinal pot.

The same goes for Kenneth Churchill at West Coast Cannabis Club, who said he’s seeing five times the amount of business after selling his first recreational cannabis this past week.

“Several hundred,” Churchill said. “We did a little over 500 transactions on Monday the 1st, and we’ve been seeing over 200 people a day every day since.”

Churchil said the majority of people that have come into West Coast Cannabis Club in Cathedral City during their first week of recreational marijuana sales have been those over the age of 50.

“I’ve heard so many times, ‘The last time I bought cannabis was in Vietnam, or when I was 20 years old,” Churchill said. “It’s so much fun, because people just don’t feel that guilt about something they already enjoy doing.”

Which is why those like Churchill and Hughes hope to see their industry continue to grow higher in the new year.

“Of course, this is a retirement destination, a vacation destination,” Hughes said. “Now, we look at it as a marijuana tourist destination.”

Churchill said he’s looking at possibly expanding his business into Palm Desert and Palm Springs.