EGREMONT — It’s been quite the journey for Ari and Heidi Zorn. Three years ago, the couple started with a dream: open a cannabis and CBD store funded largely by the community in their hometown of Egremont.
Now their planned business, Devine Cannabis and CBD, has received final licensing approval from the state Cannabis Control Commission. The commission’s executive summary for the license approval can be found here.
But, as often happens when trying to open a new business, unforeseen delays pushed the opening down the calendar by a year or so, in part because, as Ari Zorn put it, “COVID really did its piece.”
“The contractors suddenly couldn’t find a number 5 screw, or we couldn’t find someone to pave the driveway forever,” Zorn said in an Edge interview. “All the contractors were so busy, and if one delay happened, they would have to jump to a different job.”
Now the Zorns are hoping to open early next month in the basement of the Main Street building that houses the South Egremont Spirit Shoppe. The owner of the building, Jeffrey N. Cohen, renovated the cellar to make it suitable for retail. Heidi Zorn then performed more work, and added her own special touch, complete with earth tones.
“The decor is all about what we do,” Ari said. “We are aligned with nature. It’s nature-based with stained floors. That’s all Heidi.”
Known in town as the “Turtle Man,” Ari founded the Facebook page Friends of Smiley’s Pond, in which he updates friends about efforts to keep the pond’s environment healthy and its many animals free of danger. He has also been active in the NAACP Berkshires branch and once ran unsuccessfully for its presidency.
Indeed, when it opens its doors in a few weeks, Devine will become the first Black-owned cannabis business in Berkshire County, and only the fourth in the state.
“We received our final license during Black History Month and by a black inspector,” added Ari.
Interestingly, the Zorns were not able to avail themselves of the CCC’s Social Equity Program, the goal of which is to “ensure that people from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana law enforcement are included in the new legal marijuana industry.”
Egremont is not one of 29 municipalities in the state whose residents have been disproportionately harmed by enforcement of marijuana laws. The only such communities that fit that description in Berkshire County are Pittsfield and North Adams.
So, they had to raise the capital themselves. First, for the CBD portion of the business, they turned to a platform called Fundanna, a Chicago-based crowdfunding portal that connects cannabis start-ups with investors, some small and some not-so-small. The Zorns were able to raise more than $90,000 from the community, according to their Fundanna page.
In all, the Zorns raised about $250,000, some of which came from their own pockets. This is far less than most cannabis entrepreneurs must raise. Though legal in many states, marijuana remains a Schedule One narcotic on the federal level. Traditional bank loans are, therefore, almost impossible to come by because banks don’t want to risk losing their federal charters by lending to cannabis entrepreneurs.
In order to keep expenses down, the Zorns not only did their own interior decorating, but were able to keep legal costs to a minimum because Heidi’s sister, Christina Schenk-Hargrove, is an attorney trained in small-business law.
“We did not hire an expert lawyer, or someone who claims to be an interior designer, or an application specialist,” Ari explained. “I would have to guess that we have spent the least of anyone to get to this point. We have zero debt.”
Most cannabis experts in Massachusetts say it costs at least $1 million to jump through the regulatory hoops and actually open a store. Ari says he is grateful for all the work Heidi and her sister put into the regulatory side. Meanwhile, he has continued to run his own popular business, Zorn Core Fitness in South Egremont.
The Zorns will open Egremont’s first cannabis and CDB retail store. A proposal in 2020 by Emerald River LLC for a store at 195 Hillsdale Road stalled after the company failed to obtain the necessary special permit from the town.
The granting of the final license from the CCC means that Devine can legally order products and start to hire staff, though Ari acknowledged the latter has been a challenge.
“We’ve been interviewing and we’re seeing a world that’s having employment issues,” Ari said. “That means Heidi and I will be in that shop. We weren’t planning on that originally, but that’s how it goes.”
The cultivation, sale, and use of recreational cannabis-related products was legalized in Massachusetts through a 2016 ballot initiative. The measure passed by almost 7.5 percentage points statewide and by roughly 30 points in Great Barrington and Egremont. Implementation of the new law was left to the hastily created state Cannabis Control Commission. Preceding that law, medical marijuana was legalized in Massachusetts in 2012 through the same process.
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