Episode Transcript

Trevor: Kirk, you took us to the Hamptons.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah, this episode will be about going to Long Island. And then my little brain was, I couldn't stop thinking of all the detective novels and New York City blues type TV shows we've seen in the past. And yeah, we

Trevor: Like you said, The Great Gatsby.

Kirk: Yeah, we go to Long Island. We go to the South Hamptons and we talk to Little Beach Harvest. But before we go there, do you have any Rosie stories?

Trevor: Do I have any Rosie stories. Doris wouldn't let me take Rosie ice fishing. She was convinced Rosie would fall down a hole. That is unlikely, but Rosie might, however, eat a hook, which would be very bad. So maybe just as well that Rosie hasn't been ice fishing, but I went ice fishing yesterday with a couple of buddies of ours and we took in a ridiculous, cool Jeep while on tracks out there. So it's like driving a tank. And yeah, we pulled up a whole bunch of jack and threw them back, but actually had some keeper size pickerel. It was a lovely day.

Kirk: Well, you know, I've been busy in the last month. We haven't chatted much. We've put a couple rehashes up in the meantime, took a little break from interviewing people for a while, and I was really focusing on the Web Page. I did a lot of work on the Blog page. I had a lot of fun writing. I did a whole episode on buying legal weed and finally got around to writing this article I was going through my I was going through my sort of my back catalog and my notes we've made, you know, in the seven, eight years we've been doing this passion project of ours. And I found I found an episode, sorry, I found a couple paragraphs where I was writing a Blog piece on buying legal weed. And I said, Gee, I should really go back to that. And as I was reading that one, I went back and said, Oh, geez, I was writing an article on Green Outs as well. I should really go back to that. And I go back and I see another one about growing cannabis at your home. And as you know, Manitoba is scheduled to be growing, we're gonna be allowed to grow our four and the date is supposed to be April 1st.

Trevor: I actually knew it was coming, I didn't know the date. 

Kirk: Yeah, so it's going to be April 1st and we talked to a Manitoba representative and we have booked a date to talk to a spokesman for the Cannabis uh the governance people of Cannabis in Manitoba so that's set but I wrote i Iwrote a piece on it about starting a garden. I will publish that one as we get closer but I did I did publish Buying Legal Weed has Benefits and I did publish uh Green Out. Don't Freak Out. Um uh and it's funny because um we we also talked to Genester Wilson King again which is an episode coming up and uh we talked about um you know do you overdose on cannabis. Do you overdose on THC? And as you know, I don't like the word overdose when we talk about overindulgence of Cannabis. I don't like calling it an overdose because I don't think it's an overdose in my practice. So I wrote a Blog piece on that and we also did a Sunday Chat. You and I sort of got together just because we haven't and we put that up on the Blog. So our Webpage has changed and it's growing and I've offered some learning in the Blog pages.

Trevor: You have been very busy and keeping the good information flowing.

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah.

Trevor: Some of that, I think I'll lead you along has got you into chatting with some interesting people looking for other stories. And one of them was Zoe Wilder. Honestly, we're getting to the Hamptons, but there's a road to go there.

Kirk: Yeah, yeah, this is the road to Little Beach Harvest. We talk about this in the Sunday Chat, how I've been playing with AI. A friend of ours, I now belong to a trivia team. We go to our local and participate every Monday in a trivia. And she gave me access to her professional AI. And I started just playing with AI. And I did the Blog piece on Neil Young. AI wrote me a letter on why Neil Young should be a guest on Reefer Medness - The Podcast. Well, I also asked, who is Neil Young's representative? And I asked also, Jim Belushi is another fellow that we've talked about getting and I said, so who's Jim Belushi's marketing representative? Who is his agent? And came back Zoe Wilder. So, you know, I sent a message to Neil Young's people and I got back a message saying, Neil Young isn't available for interviews right now. And I promptly sent back a message to him saying, Well... I didn't expect Neil to talk to us, but if he wants to read my letter, he can. And we got the same thing, we got the same thing about Jim Belushi not being available right now. But Zoe was kind enough to send us her roster of other people and other agencies she represents herself as a publicist.

Trevor: Zoe is really involved with Cannabis. in a real royal way.

Kirk: Yeah well listed as 35 most influential women in cannabis. So of course I said Zoe really would like to talk to you but I said you know respecting the fact that you may not be available. How about Little Beach Harvest and Little Beach Harvest is a tribally owned and operated cannabis dispensary. They're located in Shinnecock Nation territory, eastern Long Island, near Southampton, New York, licensed through the Shinnecock Cannabis Regulatory Division. So, And we talk about this. I talked to Sean Boyd. Sean Boyd is the Brand Specialist for Little Beach Harvest and he'll explain a little bit about how they're governed as an Indian territory. So yeah, it's been a really interesting journey to find these guys and to bring them to Reefer Medness - The Podcast. So what do you want? You want to just go right into it?

Trevor: Yeah, just, we'll talk more on the way out, but one of the parts that piqued my interest, the listeners just sort of, how Little Beach Harvest is using their dispensary for local economic development and promote local entrepreneurs. So, I thought that was interesting. So, listen to that and we'll talk a little bit more on the way out.

Sean L. Boyd: Hi, my name is Sean Boyd. Working with Little Beach Harvest I'm the Brand Specialist. I am a Shinnecock Indian Nation tribal member. And I'm just happy to be here having this conversation and spreading the word of Little Beach Harvest and what our mission is here.

Kirk: Wonderful. I'm actually quite excited to talk to you. We're in Canada, and I think the reservation system in the in the South is a little different than the reserve system up north. So there might be a little talk about what's different about America? For example, your call to reservation was that we call ours reserves.

Sean L. Boyd: Yeah, we call the reservation. A lot of us like to call it our territory. You know. You know, I think that the the word reservation, you know, they put us on reservations almost to die, you know what I mean? They put us somewhere where they didn't want us to be. They tucked us away. But we're fortunate enough to be on our Aboriginal land out here in Southampton. We've always been out here on Long Island. We've always been here on Shinnecock land. So we're very fortunate and I personally refer to it as our territory.

Kirk: Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Little Beach Harvest from seed to sale.

Sean L. Boyd: Yes, sir.

Kirk: We can talk. We can start wherever you'd like. Maybe. How about a little bit of background about the Shinnecock people? I did a little research on my own. Your community, it's on Long Island. Please appreciate us Canadians, we know Long Island from, you know, detective novels and and TV shows and and all the rich people live off in the Hamptons.

Sean L. Boyd: So, yeah, we are we are located right here in the heart of the Hamptons. So what you hear is right where we're located. But again, we've been here from the time of memorial. You know what I mean? Since our Aboriginal land located out here in Southampton. We have been condensed down to a small portion of what was our territory. But we're right here in Southampton on 56 Montauk Highway is where our store is located. And it's it's right here on the front side of our reservation of our territory. And it's it's a big thing for us to have this building here and to be able to exert our economic sovereignty and to be able to move forward with this project.

Kirk: Yeah. Very cool. Can you talk a little bit about your community? I was checking Wikipedia. The 2010 census might be a little behind the times, but you you have a small community of 600, 670, 672 people, 662 people.

Sean L. Boyd: No, those numbers have definitely increased over the years on territory. We were probably around 1300 people on territory. Our numbers and enrollment are a little larger with the people who may not be here on territory. So we are a, you know, a smaller tribe as far as numbers compared to other people. But we have been growing as far as we see our own territory. We are here, like I said, on our original land, with the acreage that we have here, it's fortunate that we're here. The territory, we're tribe of resilience and the tribe of resistance. You know, it's been a long time that we've been fighting the colonization that is the Hamptons and that is Southampton in Long Island. And we're just proud to be here. We're proud to Shinnecock people. And we're we're faced with many different people. We don't always look the same as a lot of people may see when they see this or, you know, think I may not look like what the typical face of a Native American is, but we are very much proud of who we are. We love our culture, we love our people, and we love the community that we are.

Kirk: Very cool man. So your community again 2010 census suggests that you have an older community. A high percentage of your population of your community is over 50. Is that still still a thing?

Sean L. Boyd: No, I would say it's starting to grow and starting to balance out. I would definitely say, you know, my generation is starting to come into our own. We're in our 30s and 40s now. Some of us are having kids. My brother himself has two kids. My sister has kids. So the generation is starting to change as far as the tides would see. Our elders are definitely still a very large part of our community, and they're, you know, who we care about and who we hope to take care of. But, you know, we're also looking at the future generations of us that are here because, you know, we're looking for the next seven generations is what is what we care about. You know, we want to make sure that we're building something for the next of us that are coming, because we are starting to grow. We're starting to grow our numbers. We're starting to grow and just what we're capable of. So it's it's definitely a changing tides almost.

Kirk: Yeah. And the reason why I'm focusing on your community is it's a big part of your, your marketing is that 4% of the, the revenue from Little Beach Harvest goes to back to the community. But I want to spend a little bit more time. Is Taboo still your grower?

Sean L. Boyd: He's one of our growers. He does have his own company. He's not just our grower. He has his own business entity. And that's one of the greatest things about Little Beach Harvest. And it's allows for people to become entrepreneurs and step into their own businesses and step into their light. Taboo the phenomenon grower and Peshaun is still phenomenal product. It sells off of our selves and we are very happy to be able to do business with him, and to be able to shine a light on someone like him that has the passion for cultivation, that has the passion for plant medicine and has the skills to do it and has a great product. So yeah, he's still he's still here, product still going strong. We're hoping to get the next batch of whatever's rolling out. We're always excited for his product. But yeah, that's that's one of the big things about this project is the community that we're trying to allow to have an opportunity to, to be a part of cannabis is such a vast, growing market. And here in New York, here on Long Island, they're doing great sales. They're doing millions of numbers in tax revenue, and we're trying to get a bit of that. And instead of it being a New York state taxes, we are our own governing body. We do have our own ordinance. Instead of being a New York state tax, that tax goes back to our community. You know what I mean? So the dollars and the revenue that come into this building, they're not only going back to the Shinnecock Nation and the whole through that, but it's also going back to individuals of the Shinnecock nation, as he mentioned as Taboo and his product.

Kirk: Yeah, I was. I was doing some research in your company and what what sparked my interest was, was seed to sale. And it sounds to me that. I was going through your web page and your products are all from within Little Beach Harvest. Right. So you're not a.

Sean L. Boyd: Majority of our products. We do have some partners that are, you know, New York State brand products. We are allowed to carry New York State products and licensed products. So we do have them as well. But the majority of our products are Shinnecock brands. And again, it's just about that entrepreneurial spirit. You know, there's a lot of people that want to get into the business and want to get into the cannabis market the legal way and the right way, and getting a New York State license is hard. It's a lot of red tape. It's a lot of litigation. That's a lot of rules. And us being a sovereign nation, we're allowed to create our own ordinances. We are allowed to create our own rules. And it's something that we worked really hard to do. This project wasn't just an overnight project. This was almost eight, ten years in the making of tribal voting, of tribal law is, how are we going to do this, like to jump into the cannabis market. We know that there's a stigma around cannabis and brown people. You know, there's a stigma around just about anything that Native American people try to do as far as entrepreneurial business, whether it be gambling, whether that be just whatever the case is, there's always that, oh, they're doing this. And we knew that doing this in Southampton and being in the cannabis market, we were going to have to approach it the best way that we could. We were going to have to approach it with the most honesty as we could, and we were going to have to approach it as a community. So it took voting on ordinances. It took time, and it took the patience for us to be able to be here, to have this conversation today.

Kirk: And I bet it did. Like New York legalized in 21, 2021, March 31st 

Sean L. Boyd: For Recreational, Yeah, they put out, medicinally first. And that's when we had first started our ordinance was for traditionally just medicinally, you know, I mean because that's what New York State was. And yes, we are our own governing body, but we wanted to coincide with New York. We wanted to have it be as efficient as possible. As far as what we were trying to do, what we were allowed to do. So we watched what the state was doing. We tried to implement those things in our policy was working, what wasn't working. And as time goes on and they did decide to go full blown recreational, it was like, all right, well, now that avenue is open. How are they doing it? What are they allowing people to do? We watched as their market was starting to come into play, and we saw that certain things weren't working. So with us having our own rules, we were allowed to say, allow Taboo and other growers like himself to do indoor growing instead of this outdoor greenhouse, which does it has a vast change on the quality of product in which you're producing. And that's no offense to any grower, but that is what the product is. That is what the science of the plant is. So us having these rules and allowing us to do other things, that same thing New York State Rules can't do allows us to provide a different product for our customers and allows our producers and our people to do something vastly different.

Kirk: Okay. All right. That's sort of. So were you doing medicinal before the rec market? Because your business is still measured in months, right? You're 15 months old.

Sean L. Boyd: Yeah, we're 15 months old. So right now we were. We've always just been since we opened our doors, we opened as medicinally, I mean, as recreationally, with that option. Our focus truly is the idea of plant medicine. We don't just want to look at it as recreational or medicinal. If you're using this plant, you're using this plant for yourself and you're using it for a purpose. We all have our own relationship with plant medicine, and who are we to label it as recreational or medicine. If it's my rec time to be able to relax and use cannabis for downtime and to ail my body, my ailment after a long day. How is that not medical? You know what I mean? So it's it's a thin line to say what it is and what it isn't, and you know what it means. Exactly. So it's and with us allowing ourselves to, again, have our own policies, we recognize that. So we don't just want to put a label on it. When you step into Little Beach Harvest we want you to have the cannabis experience. We want you to be able to have the opportunity to seek knowledge, whether that is on the medicinal side of it with people learning more about CBD, CBG, CBN you know what I mean. Topicals, sublingual is all of the other things that are consumers considered medicinal because they're not in the recreational space, but it's just open for everybody. You have a very vast array of products, and we're just trying to provide a true dispensary experience when you walk into Little Beach Harvest.

Kirk: You do have a very pretty building. Your web page has a video. I've gone through it. It's it looks like a very open space place. My experience with walking into an American dispensary was several years ago, but when I walked into the dispensary, they had the medical side and the rec side. Do you have that? They have different counters for each. Or is it all one counter?

Sean L. Boyd: Well, all of our product is kind of displayed on whether I said that be topicals and sublingual or whether that just be flower or whether that be tincture. So it's kind of broken down in those ways. And then when you go to speak to our budtenders, they'll give you more of a breakdown on, again, how things are going to help you. Because when we teeter on that line of what is medicinal, what is recreational, it's again, it's hard to ask. So our first question is, hey, like, how can we help you? What do you want your experience to be? What are you seeking? Because that opens up the door to be able to point people in this direction. Some people, when they walk in here, aren't looking for, you know, something to smoke. They may be looking for a sublingual or something to take at night. A topical something to rub on themselves is something to kind of dabble into it. So we'll go all right. So that's going to be over here. You know what I mean. That's going to be these products. It's going to be these brands. You know what I mean. So it's you know, that full roundabout experience that you're going to get when you walk into the dispensary. And as you said, maybe here in America, a lot of our dispensaries have to be in like warehouse districts or, you know, medical kind of districts that are kind of tucked away. The buildings are big cement buildings, big block parking lots. Is that and as you said, from our website and our beautiful big open space, our building is very open from the beginning in the design, we were very hands on about what we wanted the space to be in, the what we wanted the cultivation feeling to be when you walked into the building. And that's one of the rules that we have, and one of the freedoms that we have being on sovereign territory is we don't have to be tucked away. We can be right out here in the open. We we can have a beautiful space, we can have a welcoming space. We have consumption here on site. We do events where people can movie nights during the summer. We can, you know, get a J with your movie ticket and sit out in the parking lot on the, you know, out in our big lot on the side, we put up a big projection screen. We allow people to be comfortable in the space to kind, to take away that stigma of what is cannabis. Everyone's welcome here. We just want to build the community and be a part of the community, not just here on Shinnecock, but in Southampton. We are located, as you said, in the heart of the Hamptons, you know, and we were part of this community no matter what.

Kirk: Yeah. I again, educate us a little bit more on on cannabis laws. And we have a very interesting situation where cannabis is legalized federally. But the provinces, our states, our provinces manage it. So every jurisdictions a little different. In New York state or on your territories. Are your bud tenders allowed to what are what are your Budtenders allowed to do? What what flexibility do they have to educate your customers on cannabis?

Sean L. Boyd: Well, again, here in New York State or here in the United States, federally, it's still illegal. I know that they're making towards or headway towards deciding on what that's going to be changed or how they're going to reschedule cannabis in the United States. But what the government has allowed is for states to vote on rules and regulations on policies about cannabis. So each individual state in the United States has its own laws and regulations, whether that be strictly recreational use, medical use or a combination of said both. Here in New York, we have a combination of said medical use and recreational use. And over the past few years, they've now opened dispensaries to be open and things like that, so forth. With us being on territory, there's a lot of restrictions that licenses in New York do upon growers and cultivators as far as outdoor cultivation, indoor cultivation and things of that nature. So a lot of regulations on percentage of, of THC in products that can be in products and controlling of that which is all set forth by the New York State Regulatory Board for cannabis or the OCM, I believe is what they're called, I believe. I hope I'm not misspeaking, but they themselves are regulatory division in New York State that sets forth the laws in which the people in New York State can do.  Us being a sovereign nation the federal government was saying that anyone who is a sovereign nation, being federally recognized by the government as its own entity and body, has the right to vote upon laws and ordinance amongst its own people. So that's where we put in laws saying that, hey, this is what we are allowed to do, this is what we are not allowed to do. And our cultivation, cultivators do have a wider space to be able to cultivate by being able to do indoor cultivation of facilities. It just again allows for anyone who knows the science of cannabis and knows the science of growing, it does allow for more controlled environment. It does not for you to have a tighter, you know, avenues of light, avenues of this and that. And here in New York, it's very seasonal on how you can grow. It is very our soil is very sandy, you know, and I mean, it doesn't have the same structural hold that cannabis plants need. So outdoor growing is is a hurdle that a lot of growers in New York have had to get over. And I commend them. This is not a knock to anyone here in New York that is in cannabis. I commend you for everything that you have done with all the red tape and litigation around you. They're great people. We are out here in that world. We have relations with them. We commend them for what they're doing. But we here on the Shinnecock Nation saw those struggles and said, we don't want our people to have to deal with those same struggles. If you're saying that you as a skilled grower and a skilled cultivator, saying that this is what you want to do, this is what's good for you. This is what's good for the plants. Good for the people, good for business. Then we are allowing them to do those things. You know what I mean? Everyone has their expertise, everyone has their knowledge. And we're allowing our people to shine in their expertise and their knowledge.

Kirk: So when you're speaking to your growers, when you say that.

Sean L. Boyd: Yeah, this is to our growers, you know, I mean, this is for anyone who's coming, coming to the nation to try to try to do business. This is for the people who are at least we're doing business with. I think that, you know, I can't speak for the nation as a whole. I can speak for a Little Beach and what we're trying to produce here. And I know that the nation does, you know, support us in our in our moves, in our in our strive for that, because we are owned and operated by the nation. But here at Little Beach, we we try to build the relation with our cultivators, build the relation with the people who are doing their things, that we trust their product, we trust their process, we trust what they're bringing to our table. You know what I mean? We trust the experience that and in them, our cultivators trust the experience that we're giving to our customers to sell their product, because that is a two-way street, you know what I mean? We have to be able to do things like this, meet great people like you. You need me to have these conversations to bring awareness to their type, to their product, to what they're doing. So that's all we're trying to do.

Kirk: That's really cool. I want to dig a little deeper into that, actually. I was going to I want to two side questions real quick. In New York State, can you consume recreational cannabis publicly in spaces?

Sean L. Boyd: You can consume in New York State you can consume cannabis anywhere publicly you can smoke tobacco. So if there's like a no smoking sign, then like you can't smoke there. But anywhere in New York State that you can smoke, you can smoke tobacco, I mean cannabis freely.

Kirk: And obviously your nation is responsible for your own territory. So when you're watching movie night and someone lights up a J. That's that's within your territory.

Sean L. Boyd: But once you step on to Shinnecock Nation, whether it be here at the dispensary or anyone here, you are on sovereign territory. You are on our laws and our rules. So again, in the 56 Montauk Highway, which is this dispensary, you know, we have the rules that we have. Of course, we are as safe as possible. We we do not, you know, condone overconsumption. You know, what I mean, we want everybody to be safe and comfortable. But yes, we do have the leeway for people to be able to consume here on site.

Kirk: Thank you for that. I want to go a little deeper into your cultivation then, because I really am quite intrigued by the seed to sale. So what I heard you say earlier than the people that are cultivating for you, they are within a 50 mile diet. They're within a ten mile diet of the dispensary.

Sean L. Boyd: Yes, some of them are here on territory. Some of them do have other sites and facilities where they're working with people out there. You get in the cannabis space and everyone's just kind of doing their own thing. So it's really just a matter of, again, allowing people to take their expertise, take their knowledge and their business opportunities and give it a space and give it a home. Again, vertical integration was always kind of the key and the hope here it was to have brands that are from Shinnecock on Shinnecock producing flower. We are hoping in the future as years come again we're only 15 months in operation, we just rounded our first year. Hopefully, you know, in time we can have a full blown facility that we're putting out Little Beach Harvest flower and Little Beach Harvest bond, Little Beach Harvest concentrates into these spaces. Hopefully we can start to partner with tribal members who have the entrepreneurial goals to build these facilities. And we can say, hey, this is a Little Beach Harvest product made here on Shinnecock by Shinnecock. You know, that's going to take time and that's always the hope and the plan. I myself as a young entrepreneur, want to get into cannabis. I want to get into extraction. That's always been a hope and a goal. And this has been an opportunity for me to gain knowledge, gain opportunities to to get a voice out there, to try to soak in everything that I can to take the next step, not only to better myself, but to contribute that to my tribe, to try to give back to a greater whole, and to try to give back to something that's given me so much over the years.

Kirk: That's very cool, man. And that's that's sort of what intrigues me about the story that you have, the economic development that you've put into cannabis. Reading about your territory and going deep into it. You did your community did apply for casino status. And it looked like you had a lot of roadblocks there. Did you ever get your casino up?

Sean L. Boyd: No. I mean, and that was a few years ago when I was very young, you know. So a lot of that happened back before I was really into, you know, what was happening structurally wise, being the Shinnecock entity. And I think that when that comes down to us, we've always looked for economic opportunity. And unfortunately, here in the US, there's only been so many avenues that they've given us. And for a long time gambling casinos was the only avenue for Shinnecock, only avenue for native people in general.

Kirk: Right.

Sean L. Boyd: You know, we were very pigeonholed into what we could and could not do. So when we did get federal recognition, of course, with that being the biggest avenue that was who was willing to partner with us, it's always been who's willing to give us an opportunity. You know, and at the time it was it was the casino. It was, you know, gambling. It was that avenue and we never got it. It never came into fruition, whether that be for internal things or business purposes, whether that be from the hurdles from the state. Because at the time, New York State wasn't doing a lot of gambling, there were no other casinos. And when we were trying to take those steps, those hurdles were put in front of us. And then once, you know, our plans kind of fell apart, Jake's 58, just popped up down on Long Island. You know, another casino opens up in New York state is running it now, you know what I mean? So and this opportunity, when the government was like, hey, federally recognized tribes in cannabis, we're hands off. We're allowing you guys to do it just like we're allowing it to do any other state. We saw an opportunity there, and that's why we stepped into this space. And we not only did we step into this space because that, but to reclaim that idea of plant medicine and to reclaim a tradition that is that is ours and that was ours and that was stigmatized. And you know what I mean? For it to be being pushed into the forefront now of the medicinal purposes of it was something that we've always known. And for us to not have an opportunity to capitalize on that economically would be foolish. And it would be. It would be for not if we didn't try. You know what I mean? So it did. It took time for us to get over that stigma around it and to step forth into this opportunity because it's just like gambling, there's a stigma around it. Yeah. You know, the Indians are opening a Casino. You know, what does it do? You know what I mean? It's it's that whole idea of it, even right now, not to speak too much on, you know, a case that's open. Our tribe is being sued by the town of Southampton because we're trying to develop a Travel Lot gas station on land that's ours. And they're saying that they don't want to. They're they're saying they filed this lawsuit, a $3 million lawsuit paid with tax dollars from Southampton against our people. And they say it's not us that we hope they don't take it to the side of disrespect.

Kirk: Yeah. Yeah.

Sean L. Boyd: We just want oversight. There's laws, there's ordinances, there's rules. Whose? Not ours. Because if you're saying that we have to abide by those rules, if we're saying that, we have to give you oversight over our project means that you don't recognize our sovereignty. You don't recognize what we're capable of doing. You don't think that we're capable of doing things safe where you don't think that we went through all the structures that we needed to be able to move forward with this. And that's disrespectful.

Kirk: I see that.

Sean L. Boyd: I'm another adult. Oh, I just think I just think we need to look over this. I just think we should have oversight.

Kirk: Right. Right.

Sean L. Boyd: Because that's very disrespectful, you know. So, we still today fight for our sovereignty. We still today fight for our recognition. We still today fight for economic opportunity no matter what that being, whether that be gambling in casinos, whether that be cannabis, whether that be trying to provide a travel station for people to stop off and get a rest. And there's always a hurdle if taxpayer dollars can't come back in. There's always a hurdle if they can't have control over something. But this project Little Beach Harvest is something that they don't have control over. And something that we've been moving forward with and something that we're very proud to be able to bring to our people.

Kirk: Are you the only dispensary on Long Island? I mean, are you?

Sean L. Boyd: No, we are the the farthest licensed dispensary east on Long Island. Again, being licensed and reasons by the tribe. There are there is one in Riverhead I believe is the closest one that was just opened. There's another one in Farmingdale. There's another one up a little bit more westward of us, but it's a little bit of a gap because, yeah, Long Island itself allowed the townships to again vote in on if it was going to be allowed, if it wasn't going to be allowed in some townships opted out for selling cannabis. So it's been a little bit of time coming for dispensaries to even open up on Long Island. And that was also a trouble that a lot of producers were having because they were growing all this flower. They gave a bunch of licenses out to growers and cultivators, but then there were no dispensaries open for them to sell to. There were no brands for them to sell to. So us being open allowed for us to have an avenue for some New York markets. There some New York players in the market to get in. And for us to thrive as a tribe to to create opportunity for ourselves.

Kirk: The reason why, again, I'm asking what I find fascinating. I go back to the seed to sale thing. What I've come to understand about recreational cannabis, and even medicinal cannabis in Canada, is the distance in which that cannabis has to travel back and forth, and it loses its trichomes. The flower gets dry, it becomes old. You never really know when it was harvested, you know when it was packaged, but you don't know when it's harvested. Seed to sale your cannabis isn't traveling very far. I noticed you use foil. You use foil packaging, not plastic cups.

Sean L. Boyd: It kind of depends. Everyone has their own packaging, whether that be the mylar bags that are sold or sealed proof and airtight, whether that be people who have jars.

Kirk: Elderly people proof. You can't get into it.

Sean L. Boyd: I mean, they're a little bit tricky. They trick me up sometimes too. Rubbing them together, trying to get them. They say childproof for them, but I'm like, is it really child proof? Yeah, but but no, we have a vast array of different products because again, everyone is individually owned and operated, so it's different packaging as far as the right bags you were saying, yeah, the sale to seed that does operate a little faster because the people who are running these brands, or some of the people working with their own team of cultivators or some of the people doing their own cultivation. So we get to have that conversation of like, hey, how's it going? And they're like, hey, I'm three weeks out, got plants going into this, going to prompt this, that. And by the time it's bagged and ready to go, we know. You know what I mean. That's one of the one of the really cool things about being able to build these relationships with these brands and it being kind of so personal because we are smaller, we are tight knit, and we don't have to answer to all these other people, you know what I mean? So we get to build these relationships with these brands and really see how they work. It is a cool conversation when you get to see on someone's phone like, yo, this is what I got going, this is the next batch. This is what it is like. You can swing by if you want to swing by. Yeah, you know what I mean. When your cultivator can say that to you and you can go and step into a room. And so you've been in plenty of grow op and you get that, that humidity and sweet smell and you're like, oh yeah, because it's warm when you walk into a cultivation, you know, to a cultivation center. It's a beautiful thing. So to get to witness that and then to see that product coming to the store and then to watch people purchase that product and enjoy it right here on site, it's a beautiful, full circle moment.

Kirk: Well, that that leads me to your to your marketing. "We are redefining the way people think about cannabis. Our mission is to revolutionize the cannabis industry with customer centric approach and passion for quality." You pretty much have said that to me. I mean.

Sean L. Boyd: Yeah, I mean, last year, our 420 event, we had over 1300 people in the door to our event, and it was people of all walks of life, older generations. We had a Grateful Dead cover band play, one chunk, we had reggae band cover another chunk, we had a DJ, you know what I mean? So there are people from all ages, all walks of life here, just to enjoy cannabis in a safe space. And no one felt that a place, no one felt weird. No one felt uncomfortable enjoying asking for a lighter or getting papers. You know, enjoying the different activities that we had people playing card games together. It was just a community feel, and you can see it in people's faces when they walked out to an event like that, like, oh, this is cool. Like, oh, this is this is really chill. Like, I can just smoke a joint right here and just, like, enjoy my time and listen to some music and just enjoy life. You know what I mean? And just enjoy what this plant provides for people. And that's one of the experiences that we hope to be able to keep providing here at Little Beach Harvest. It's just an environment to come and enjoy cannabis in the space that you feel comfortable.

Kirk: Fantastic. So 4% of your sales. Is that net or gross going to your community?

Sean L. Boyd: Gross. I want to say I don't want to be misspoken, but I believe the quarterly gross, we we put it into the community and we give back to different things.

Kirk: Can you give me an example of, in the last 15 months, what you can say? This is what Little Beach Harvest has done for our community.

Sean L. Boyd: I can't give you number wise, but I know that it's been it's been great to see the opportunities that we've given people. We did an art show here, and a lot of the artists that we featured were Shinnecock artists and people of the community. And just to see them have a sense of pride of seeing their art up on the wall. My uncle was one of the people and he was like, nephew, I think this might be my first hanging ever. And here my uncle, who's been doing art since before I was born, taking pictures since before I was born. For him to have that space and that opportunity, that's an amazing thing that's giving back to our community. We are very much a grant based, funded tribe being federally recognized. You know, a lot of our infrastructure is funded by, you know, the government. So us creating this opportunity and giving back, no matter what we can, is an opportunity for our elders' program to keep going for our Boys and Girls club to keep going for us to invest in our cultural program, to build a proper cultural center. Right now, we're doing renovations on our tribal center, and it would be great if we could have more money to be able to give to things like that. And not only more money, but more exposure for the need for opportunities for, you know, exposure for things, more fundraisers or just different things. Those the things in the future that we hope to be able to give back to and provide here at Little Beach Harvest. Sometimes it's hard to just put a monetary goal on something. And sometimes it's a little tough to see exactly how monetarily things go, but giving an opportunity to somebody, providing a space for somebody, giving them an opportunity to provide not only for themselves, but for their families and their communities. That's a real goal, that's providing sovereignty. You know what I mean? It's one thing to call yourself a sovereign nation, but it's one thing to be able to take care of yourself, then be able to take care of your nation, to be able to give back to your nation. And I think that that's something that our nation has been striving towards. We are working towards that. It takes time. It's not easy. You know what I mean? And it's a lot of a lot of back and forth. Is a lot of this not on what's the right decision because we again, we're moving as a tribe. We're moving as a people, moving as a family. And sometimes that gets hard. Like, you know, real hard when things get a lot of personal, when it's cous that you're yelling at. You know what I mean? Or that fellow you're having a dispute with. You know what I mean? So but again, this project is, is to try to give back. We're not perfect. Nothing's going to be perfect. We're open to listen. We're here for the community. We're trying to give back. And opportunities like this are opportunities for young entrepreneurs such as myself and just other, other people that are willing to try to play ball. We're here at the table. We want people to come to the table and we'll have conversations.

Kirk: As a business in a restricted industry. Are you prepared to speak about the banking? How how is the banking process? What do you do with your cash?

Sean L. Boyd: We are fortunate that, you know, since New York State does have licenses here in New York State, there are banks that are willing to do business with people who have licenses. And I believe if I'm not against Misspeaking, it might not be my place. We do have a bank account. We do have we are very legitimate, you know what I mean? Our money goes through cycles and, you know, just like anyone else, you know? So we do have a bank account. We are working with people who are working with cannabis here in New York State because again, it is recognized, it is licensed. It is ruled by our business entity. So yeah, we we do we do business just like any other dispensary doesn't operate.

Kirk: Wonderful, one of the one of the things I picked up when I toured Colorado, I think it's probably about seven years ago, was that they had a lot of cash they didn't know what to do with.

Sean L. Boyd: Yeah, it was a big thing of banks not wanting to touch that money because federally it's like, you know what I mean? But as those avenues are opening up, people are trying to legitimize it as much as you can, because the more that you keep that stigma on it, the more that money's going to stay in the in the gray, the more that money's going to be out there floating around, you know what I mean? And that wasn't, again, the state's point of least trying to tax it and create some revenue, you know what I mean, it's always about a source of revenue or a source of trying to give back to some sort of community. So again, the more that we can control it, the more that we can open this up to be a fully controlled and regulated market, just like anything else. You know what I mean? That we can remove these stigmas, these barriers, these limitations, the more we can all do business together.

Kirk: Fantastic. We're coming to the end of our time Sean, is there anything that I did not ask you? Is there any message you want to give our audience?

Sean L. Boyd: No, I mean, again, I'm very grateful for this conversation. So thank you for this. If you're in the area on Long Island, Check us out at 56 Montauk Highway right here in the Shinnecock Indian Nation. If you just want to learn more about Little Beach Harvest, the tribe our mission littlebeachharvest.org is our website. We are also on Facebook @littlebeachdispensary and IG @littlebeachharvest. So there's just different ways to find us. Of course, we have links to just other things, Shinnecock Nation and please, just, you know, just all the listeners out there, look up our people, look up our nation. Hear who we are, hear our story, and, you know, recognize that our fight for sovereignty is the same just as other people out there in native country. No matter what you may think of what we look like and who we are, we are indigenous people. We are here. We are fighting the same fight together. And the more that we can band together to unite in this fight for sovereignty, the more that we can do together and the further we can come. So again, we're always open to talk to more people and learn from more people and just give us a shout out, just give us an ear. That's all we ask for.

Kirk: Well, thank you so much, sir.

Kirk: What do you think?

Trevor: We've been to the Hamptons.

Kirk: Yeah, I completely agree with you. We've been to the Hamptons. I don't know what it is, Trevor. I don't know what it is. Maybe it would be as thrilling to say, I'm talking to somebody from Hollywood. There's just something about Long Island, the South Hamptons, that's bedded into this 60s culture that I grew up, the 60s and 70s.

Trevor: It's been on on TVs and movies forever, but on a more serious note, the date of we recorded this was March 9th. There are some serious brushfires on Long Island, and as of the time of recording hasn't actually got to Little Beach Harvest or the highway, the Montauk Highway. We're hoping that is still true when this goes forward, but yeah. We're really hoping everybody in associated with Little Beach Harvest is okay with the, with the Long Island brush fires.

Kirk: in real time. Yeah. So again, one of the reasons why when Zoe sent me her roster of people she represents, what really honed me in on this issue is I've been trying to find First Nations stories in Canada again, since we started this passion project. I've walked into First Nations dispensaries. I've asked for stories. I've emailed First Nations dispensaries. And I've heard very little back, and I haven't been able to coordinate. This one, going through a representative, she really responded very quickly, very, very quickly. I was quite impressed. She really, Zoe, you made me feel important. And I think I told her that in the email because there's been many times that I've sent out emails to celebrity and received crickets, right? You hear nothing back from them and it makes you feel kind of small. But Zoe, Zoe truly responded in a positive way and this story really got to me and what got to me about the story was that you know on their webpage they talk about we're redefining the way people think about cannabis. They have a mission to revolutionize cannabis industry with a customer-centric approach and a passion to quality and I talk about it when I talk to Sean how really, what's the definition of craft cannabis, right? And from what I can gather is that their cannabis is coming from a 10 kilometer diet. Like they're friends and neighbors on the Shinnecock Nation are growing the cannabis that they're selling from their dispensary. So this is fresh cannabis that has traveled very little. That impresses me.

Trevor: It does. And Sean talked about it a couple of times, but I think, well, completely unrelated, but I just thought it was really cool. Movie night. Isn't that a great idea?

Kirk: Yeah.

Trevor: Out in their parking lot, you know, a cannabis friendly movie night, you know, everyone from the elders to, I assume, I can't remember, but I assume there's a cutoff 18, 19, 21, whatever it was, but adults from young to old, not kids. But, you know, in a friendly environment, you know, watch the movie, enjoy the cannabis of your choice. I thought that was really cool. But circling back to the economic development, he's saying, you know, there's just not that many things that a tribe, a community is, quote unquote, allowed to make money off of. You know, they tried the casino route, but it didn't happen. And so they're using this as economic development, which is, and I think they're doing it in a great way. Like you said, they're promoting local growers. They're allowing local, you know, obviously local people could come to anyone, anyone who travels down the Montauk Highway can stop and it's not exclusive in that way. It's not that kind of Hamptons exclusive. But yeah, promoting local growers, local business people sort of through their dispensary to grow businesses, to grow the economy, you know, literal economic development. I thought that was realy cool.

Kirk: yeah and and and to comment on what you're saying about the movie night what i saw there was destigmatization of cannabis I mean we in Manitoba, we're so uptight about cannabis. You know, we have a federal law that says we can consume cannabis as a legal substance. Part of the Canadian law also says we can consume cannabis as medicine and every jurisdiction is responsible for their laws. Well, in Manitoba, the conservative government that made the laws in 2018, basically said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can consume cannabis, but as long as it's in your domicile. And as long as you own it, because if you rent it, the owner of the rental could say no. If you live in an apartment where you can't consume it because you're not allowed to smoke. So we've got smoking cigarettes, smoking cigars, smoking cannabis all lumped into one. So essentially there is no place you can consume cannabis in Manitoba unless you do it in your own backyard in a property that you own, right? So that's still stigmatized cannabis whereas these guys talk about walking into a beautiful beautiful dispensary. If you go on their webpage and it will be linked to our webpage they have this beautiful wide open structure, wooden structure. You walk in, it looks like it's a lot of glass, a lot of wood. You go in and you choose your craft cannabis that was grown within a five kilometer, five mile radius of where they're selling it from. And I'm picturing Greencraft Cannabis, you know, in downtown, in downtown Dauphin kind of thing, right? Because they've got this, they talk about having commercially, commercial cultivators that are using state-of-the-art equipment. And so I'm picturing this beautiful grow-op, you know, they harvest the flower on Tuesday, they cure it for a couple weeks, and then they sell it to the dispensery. You go in, you get yourself a nice bit of cannabis, you get your pipe, you light it up, out in the parking lot and you watch a movie. And it's chill. You know, and it just seems so natural to me that that should be the way it is. And but here we are in Manitoba where you can't do that. It's it's it there's no there's no chilliness and there's no chilliness in Manitoba.

Trevor: There's chilliness, but no chill.

Kirk: Yeah. So I really enjoyed it. And you're right, you know, 4 % of their gross goes back into the community. His uncle got to display some photographs. They're building something from this.

Trevor: I forgot about the art show. Yeah. Yes. The movie night in the art show. Yes. Yeah. That was very cool.

Kirk: What I like about what I like about what I'm envisioning, of course, I sense that Little Beach Harvest probably has nice packaging, it's going to be properly labeled and stuff, but I sense this chillness I felt when I went into Haida Gwaii, Masset, and I went to Haida Hazes, and you remember they were just quart sealer jars of cannabis. I mean, it can't be any more natural than that, right? And I still marvel at the fact, and I think it's in my next Blog piece, how, you know, I'm going to go spend Sunday afternoon at our local brewery watching people perform plays that were written in Dauphin. And it's natural to sit down with a homebrew stout, watching local people perform local art and local printed word in an alcohol establishment. but we can't do it with cannabis yet, right?

Trevor: One more thing. I know, I know. I love local, yeah, yeah. But back to Little Beach Harvest, I was also impressed with, I got thrown in because it was, is how they leveraged, and sorry if I get the terminology wrong, but the local tribal, the local community, the local reserve laws to get things done, because they've got... And again, we're not from there. We don't know all the ins and outs, but they, they definitely have the kind I'm picturing it kind of sort of like a municipality. They've got a lot of control over the local area and they were using those for, for good, for the community. You know, here's, here's what we can and can't do. Here's, you know, things like the art show and the movie. So they just kind of like a municipality and sorry if I'm saying wrong.

Kirk: Territory.

Trevor: Territory. But their territorial laws to make this happen. I'm impressed how well they leveraged that to make the whole experience better.

Kirk: Yeah, I just like how it's done so chill and hopefully we'll get there in Canada where we're also chill with Cannabis and people can just be comfortable with it because there's still that umbrella when you talk about cannabis. Cannabis still is not discussed freely but yeah, okay, I digress on a rant, Little Beach Harvest. Really enjoyed it. Zoe, anything else you want to talk about Little Beach Harvest?

Trevor: No, I think we covered it. Thanks, Sean. Thanks to everyone at the Little Beach Harvest. That was great. Been another good one. I'm Trevor Shewfelt, I'm the pharmacist.

Kirk: Right. We always seem to do this. I'm Kirk Nyquist. I'm the registered nurse and we are Reefer Medness - the Podcast, found at reefermed.ca. Our webpage is changing. If you haven't been on there for a while, go back. There's some new stuff to it. And we're on all those social media things. So anyways, yeah, Reefer Medness - The Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. See you in the next one.

Trevor: Absolutely. See you everyone later.