Music and pot: a bond that only grows stronger and stronger over time. Amoeba Music co-owner Dave Prinz understands the seamless relationship between the two, which is why he wants to open a dispensary at the Berkeley location of the Bay Area record store chain.
Amoeba has applied with the city of Berkeley to open a medical marijuana dispensary in its store. If successful, Amoeba said it will move all the jazz and classical merchandise into the main room to make space for the dispensary. The two businesses would have separate storefronts.
Talking with the East Bay Express, Prinz said that a part of wanting to do this is for supplemental income. “That’s the real truth. This helps keep us open and enables us to do some amazing sh*t,” Prinz said.
Fellow co-owner Marc Weinstein also spoke about the opening of a dispensary in his store, telling The Daily Californian that it would benefit “bookstores, record stores, cafes and add a lot of traffic to Telegraph,” the name of the street where the record store is located.
Berkeley already has three dispensaries (they approved another one a year ago), and Amoeba is going up against five other groups looking for the same permit. Although Amoeba could get approved, it’s already facing opposition from the chair of the advisory commission, Charles Pappas. “I don’t think it’s a good situation. You really don’t want people who come in and buy medicine and then reselling it on [Telegraph]…there’s a lot of underground dealing going on,” Pappas told the Daily Cal.
This isn’t Amoeba’s first time working with weed. The record store has rented out space above its San Francisco location to a medical marijuana office called Green Evaluations in the past.
(Via Billboard)
