While some might recommend a to deal with the mania surrounding Black Friday, others will be lining up for “doorbuster” deals on that same Colorado pot this weekend.
The eager-to-normalize marijuana industry is ready to cash in on the weekend after Thanksgiving — .
“It’s our way of fitting in with more mainstream businesses and the businesses that are normal for Black Friday,” owner Ryan Fox said. “We also want to insert ourselves into the commerce involved from a retail perspective. It’s a great gift idea. And for some people, it’s an outlet to deal with Black Friday. So maybe we’ll turn it into Green Friday someday.”
Fox’s shop won’t be alone in its Black Friday sale Friday through Sunday, but his store, at 4125 Elati St. in Denver, will mark the shopping holiday with surprisingly cheap deals.
What is his shop’s equivalent to Walmart’s dirt-cheap flat-screen TVs?
“It’ll definitely be the ,” Fox said. “Right now, our cheapest ounce is $250, and some of those ounces in the $250-$325 range will be selling for $50 an ounce on that weekend.”
Across town, in the historic Five Points neighborhood, the on Friday will sell a limited number of ounces of Chunky and for $100 to medical patients and $150 ounces of Midnight Train on the recreational side. (The shop will sell 15 discounted ounces medically and another 15 recreationally.)
“People are going to Best Buy and Walmart at 5 a.m.,” said Kush Club budtender Ryan Garvey. “So by the time we open at 8 a.m., they’ll have already spent a lot of money, and they’ll be looking for some relief.”
Celebrating Black Friday with loss-leader deals in the hopes of luring more regular customers is a pot shop’s way of saying that legal marijuana businesses are normal businesses. Like Best Buy and its ilk, supplies will be limited. The short list of the Grass Station’s best deals, which will be available each morning Friday through Sunday:
• $1 joints and cones: 60 per day.
• $5 grams of marijuana flower: 10 per day.
• $10 eighths of flower: Eight per day.
• $50 ounces of flower: 16 per day.
• $2 10-milligram edibles: Until they’re sold out, “and we’re well-stocked on these,” Fox said.
• $15 150-milligram O.penVape vape pen cartridges: Until they’re sold out. “We will not be selling out of these cartridges,” Fox said, noting they normally cost $30. “We’re very well-stocked.”
• $20 grams of wax concentrates from TC Labs and Venom: 5 grams per day.
• $25 grams of shatter concentrates: 5 grams per day.
The Grass Station also is honoring all of its competitors’ coupons now through the end of the year.
The shop did a similar promotion in 2013, when it was still a medical-only dispensary, and those lines of 50 to 60 people told Fox that the shopping holiday is also applicable to the marijuana business. Now that his shop is selling recreational cannabis, he’s expecting significantly longer lines this holiday.
“If we could we’d just stay open 24 hours all three days, but since we can’t … ,” Fox joked. “Last year’s lines were as long as a few hours long. … We’re ramping up on staff this year, and we’ll have more security, extra security and crowd control there.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394, rbaca@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bruvs
