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Electric Lettuce redefines the retail marijuana experience with a polished 1960s vibe

2018-08-07T17:37:00-04:00

As legalized marijuana begins to sweep the U.S, the rapidly expanding cannabis industry has ushered in a new era of high-design shops trading out tie-dye and Grateful Dead tees for smoking devices that look straight out of an Apple store and products wrapped in designs by Pentagram.

Electric Lettuce, a recreational dispensary with multiple locations across Oregon, delivers this modern stoner culture in spades. Deeply rooted in the 1960s—with a waiting lounge decorated in vintage cannabis paraphernalia where customers can listen to records spinning Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix—the store evokes a classic counterculture feel with a polished touch.

Photo by Lincoln Barbour.

The team behind the store—JHL Design working alongside branding agency OMFG Co.—have worked together before to deliver another one of Portland's fancy weed stores, Serra. Serra is a sophisticated, minimalist shop that one would reasonably walk into thinking it was a jewelry store. Electric Lettuce, on the other hand...

A cannabis business is buying a small town in California with plans to transform it into the first weed "infused" tourist destination

2017-08-07T14:12:00-04:00

Nipton, California has all the makings of a stoner heaven. There’s a general store, a hotel, a campground, an endless supply of delicious water, and—for those late-night giggles—a Castle Butt Road. Perhaps that’s why American Green Inc., an eight-year-old self-described marijuana “seed-to-sale innovator,” decided to purchase the 80-acre town (population six) and turn it into “the country’s first energy-independent, cannabis-friendly hospitality destination.”

The Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in U.S history with over 300,000 people arriving in California hoping to reap its benefits. Well over a century and a half later, many of the towns along the coast, once vibrant, have been left as ghost towns as anyone taking a road trip along the 5 can attest to. However, with the legalization of marijuana sweeping the coast, some believe the newly legalized industry can usher in a 21st century version.

One company, American Green Inc., is in the process of buying the town of Nipton, CA—a remnant of the California Gold Rush—in the hopes of turning it into a weed "infused" tourist destination. The town has a rich history, bustling from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries along with the mining industry, and even boasting a hotel that played host to the silent-movie star Clara Bow, who owned a ranch nearby.

Today, the town has a fluctuating population of 20 to 70 people and offers tremendous natural resources in the form of a Pleistocene-e...

Marijuana Real Estate: This isn't just another greenhouse

2017-05-21T23:57:00-04:00

Innovative Industrial Properties, Kalyx and other similar groups are following the same strategy: buy buildings, retrofit them and lease them to commercial or medical marijuana growers. But it can often cost millions to turn a vacant warehouse into a facility suitable for cannabis cultivation.

David Gelles reports that the spread of legalization means the weed business is booming and with it, demand for commercial, industrial space. The latest post-industrial trend in states like California, Colorado, Massachusetts or even New York is a retrofitted industrial-scale "cultivation center."

photo by Ryan Mungia

Related readings include; a 2005 look at how Pot Clinics (were) Grow(ing) Like Weed in SF and last year's photo essay of L.A.'s "Green Mile." Or back in February, the Marketplace Morning Report on how these new REITs could help grow the medical-marijuana business.

photo by Ryan Mungia

Finally, last year over at the Weed thread, gruen noted "Big gold rush here to convert disused industrial facilities to indoor grow in advance of legislation."