Episode Transcript
Trevor: Kirk, we're back.
Kirk: Yeah. Hey, Trevor, how are you?
Trevor: Good. So we're both in Dauphin right now, which honestly just seems to be a while since we're both here at the same time. And that's because you were on the road and collected us some Road Stories.
Kirk: Yes. And I guess this is like, we're recording this in November. These Road Stories happened in September, and the Instagram account has them has pictures of them. But yeah, I've got I basically have four stories that I have obtained by just walking into cannabis stores. One of the things I like to do is that when I am visiting cities, I like to search out cannabis stores and ask people questions, and I do that for all sorts of reasons. Obviously, one is I like to promote this Podcast.
Trevor: Of course,
Kirk: Reefer Medness - The Podcast, and also just as a nurse, I like to know what's happening in the industry, in recreational cannabis, and sometimes I just sit around and listen to what the budtenders are telling people. I just like to get a vibe for what's happening in the retail space. So, the first story is from Edmonton on Jasper Avenue, Canna Cabana, and we have a story from Kelsey there. She's one of the employees there. The second story and the second story comes from Lloydminster, and that's from Plant Life. The third story comes from Saskatoon, and this is quite funny because in all due respect to Saskatoon, I think you could throw a baseball in any street and find a cannabis story. There's so many cannabis stores in Saskatoon, but we stopped and visited The Joint and got an interview from that fellow there. And then I was at a mall, the I guess, East Side, and I noticed there is a Prairie Record store and I'm thinking a record store having gone to a record store in a long time. Be damned if it isn't a cannabis store.
Trevor: OK?
Kirk: So yeah, so these are these are four stories I got by just being on the road. So, I was thinking that maybe, maybe a good song for this might just be Alberta Bound. You know.
Trevor: Because I everyone likes that one.
Kirk: Yeah, but mind you, mind you, I'm actually driving away from Alberta during these Road Stories. But yeah Trevor.
Trevor: But you were Alberta bound on the way there, so it's still fine.
Kirk: That's true. So, we'll just we'll just let these stories flow in, and it's a short one for our listeners Reefer Medness - The Podcast I'm Kirk, I'm the nurse enjoy.
Trevor: I'm Trevor Shewfelt, I'm the pharmacist. Have a good time with this one. Everyone likes a Road Story.
Kelsey: My name is Kelsey, and the only story that really came to mind is me, my friend went out for a walk to obviously smoke a joint. We decided, let's get an anthill high. So, we stole an ant from an anthill and it was a queen ant and I cupped it, started, we both blew smoke into our cup hands where the ant was and the ant started to spin around in my palm crazily and the ant literally greed out. It turned lime green.
Kirk: Really.
Kelsey: From a black ant.
Kirk: and a queen ant.
Kelsey: A queen; a black ant yes, very huge. Probably about a centimeter or something. It's the caboose started to literally turn lime green, and the whole thing just faded into green. So, we freaked out. I flicked it off and it started flying, and it was literally just going up and down, up and down. We literally greened out an ant.
Kirk: Great story.
Rhonda: My name is Rhonda Lantz, and I'm the store manager of Plant Life Lloydminster, and I have been here since decriminalization or legalization, which would have been October of 2018. It's been quite an interesting experience from the get go even before the doors opened. I anticipated there was going to be a lot of younger people walking through the doors and much to my surprise, it was all people around my age that were walking through the doors and we do get a younger crowd as well, but definitely a lot, yeah, I would say 30s to 50s. And even beyond that. A lot of people will come in and they're asking specific for medical. They want to use the product for their medical issues. But because we can't speak to it, we have learned or been trained to ask questions in a certain way to get around that.
Kirk: You could always direct them to the podcast.
Rhonda: I can always direct them to the podcast. Absolutely, yes.
Kirk: So you umm, I've noticed that when I Googled Lloydminster Cannabis Shops one two three four five six seven.
Rhonda: There's a lot.
Kirk: All on this highway.
Rhonda: all Along the highway.
Kirk: And so, you guys are a busy shop.
Rhonda: We are a busy shop and being raised on the West End. I think it's I mean, prior to maybe even construction, although we're not really inhibited by it. But we do get we do get a lot of out of towners. 'Cause there is a lot of outlying areas here as well, so.
Kirk: Thank you. that's a great story.
Chris: Hi, there, my name is Chris Lawson. I work for a company called Prairie Records here in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. At current we have two locations here in Saskatoon, one in Stonebridge, one in Broadway, and then we have one in Moorman as well. We also have two locations in Calgary, Alberta, and we're hoping to expand in the near future. The idea behind our story is that music and Cannabis go hand in hand and taking a step into one of our stores and really feeling the vibe and seeing our layouts. People really, really get that. All the records that we have here in our store actually going to be strains of cannabis that we carry within our shop. Each record has a strain name with where it is grown and what the percentage is going to be and a little bit more about its backstory and what people think about it. In the past, I know that they used to have a record that would tell you what the cannabis paired well with when it comes to the music. Yeah, it's a super cool little company to work for. They're super great at the super cool vibe, and it's different in every one of our stores. And yeah, we're super proud of it.
Mathew: My name is Mathew Gignac. I am 34 years old. I've been working in the legal cannabis business for roughly three months now, but I've been definitely killing it. Before the pandemic hit. I was involved in the liquor industry and, you know, as a supervisor, then I got laid off from that. So, it's kind of like unemployed for a year. I knew when I wanted to get back to the workforce, I wanted to do cannabis. I just that so many places I applied and I was dead set on getting it, you know, into the cannabis industry. But a few months before I got this job here, I decided I want to grow my plants for the first time and ended up going to my buddy's place. Had a bag of weed and I sort of grinding some stuff in like some seeds in here. Two, three, four five six and I'll see what happens. And yeah, and I planted them all. And basically, six of the seven seeds grew. I gave a couple to a friend and I started growing three of them. And yeah, they're in the budding process right now and I have one month left and I get like some good hauls on these things are giant like four-foot things, and it's been like quite the bucket list project for me because it's something I've always wanted to do, and I never thought I could actually succeed at growing plants to the budding phase, and have it look so beautiful. Like they're turning purple and yellow and red on the tips like it's turning quite gorgeous. And I just found some seeds in there. All all of them turned out to be female. Oh, right, right away. Yeah, I like, I don't know, my destiny was on my side, I guess. Yeah. So yeah, now I'm becoming an assistant manager for The Joint, and I've only been here three months.
Kirk: So and The Joint is a corporate store?
Mathew: Corporate sort of. It's they have head offices in Winnipeg, so the only Joint is like in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. That's I think there's like 12 stores in total. So between the two provinces and I think there's only there's three locations here in Saskatoon, one in the Assinaboia and one in Regina, and the rest of them are just in Manitoba. It's kind of a franchise but not really like. We're in constant contact with the owners and the actual like head office people like every day, constantly like there's WhatsApp groups for everything and it's constant communication. It's awesome.
Kirk: Well thank you for the story?
