Yes, many businesses near the heart of the action suffered broken windows and fell prey to looters as fury over the police killing of George Floyd reached a boiling point. However, the crime spree that's now touched seemingly every Bay Area dispensary was not the inadvertent result of a riot or a small-scale effort to make off with a souvenir.
Instead, according to Magnolia Wellness executive director Debby Goldsberry, 20 men armed with guns paid her store an after-hours visit on Saturday, May 30, and left with everything they could take.
"Little did we know," Goldsberry told SFGATE by phone, "that on Friday night, the 29th, five dispensaries had armed robberies. Nobody notified us that five dispensaries had been robbed. The city didn't warn us. The police didn't warn us. We didn't know, so Magnolia didn't even know to be prepared."
While licensed pot shops and delivery services
represent the customer-facing aspects of the cannabis industry, the Bay
Area is also home to a large number of manufacturers, cultivators, and
distributors as well. The licensing databases for all of these
businesses were, until recently, fully accessible to the public.
As
a result, there is now reasonable belief among industry insiders that
this database was utilized as a way to target grow houses and other
facilities that are often tucked away in industrial neighborhoods in
hopes of avoiding unwanted attention.
On June 4, the databases were disabled in response to a letter requesting the action from the California Cannabis Industry Association.
Unfortunately, however, the damage is already done.
Nug’s CEO John Oram estimated losses to the company’s Oakland cultivation facility may top $2 million,
which Budzu calculates as being worth 900 pounds of cannabis. A nearby
growhouse for Cookies, the Bay Area cannabis-clothing empire overseen by
rapper Berner, was also targeted. Meanwhile, down in Los Angeles, a Cookies location on Melrose was hit by looters on May 30.
As a result, there is now reasonable belief among industry insiders that this database was utilized as a way to target grow houses and other facilities that are often tucked away in industrial neighborhoods in hopes of avoiding unwanted attention.
On June 4, the databases were disabled in response to a letter requesting the action from the California Cannabis Industry Association.
Unfortunately, however, the damage is already done.
Nug’s CEO John Oram estimated losses to the company’s Oakland cultivation facility may top $2 million, which Budzu calculates as being worth 900 pounds of cannabis. A nearby growhouse for Cookies, the Bay Area cannabis-clothing empire overseen by rapper Berner, was also targeted. Meanwhile, down in Los Angeles, a Cookies location on Melrose was hit by looters on May 30.
Is it the pot or the $2 million?
ReplyDeleteThere is a reason pharmacies get looted during riots. The street value of the drugs looted from there is high.
20 men armed with guns? How could this be happening in San Francisco? Don't the robbers know this is a crime?
I doubt this has much to do with legalization has it has to do with criminal gangs taking an opportunity that was handed to them.