Stories featured this week:
1. Which presidential candidates are tweeting about
Joe Kennedy
2. Can you
legally jump off a Bremerton bridge?
3. The Olympic mountains got a present
4. Which pot store brings in the
most cash in Kitsap?
5. Go on a tour
of Bremerton’s newest apartments
Please let me know what you think! Suggestions welcomed at josh.farley@kitsapsun.com.
For most people, smoking pot would not qualify as a homework assignment. But for staff at Destination Highway 420, Bremerton’s newest recreational marijuana shop, it’s a possible part of a burgeoning quality control program that calls for rating and reviewing different weed strands and types.
“We want to make sure we have the best quality product around,” said Michelle Beardsley, the store’s operations director and a welder at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
Bremerton’s newest marijuana store, the first on the city’s east side, just got up and running this week — pot in all forms is coming in from growers all over the state — and has a grand opening slated for Saturday. It has been opened by two of the four people who started the county’s first pot store outside South Kitsap, Highway 420, on Charleston Beach Road. In fact, Beardsley and co-owner Brian Rose call it a “sister store.”
But both say it will be different. Located on Hollis Street, across from the Cloverleaf Sports Bar & Grill, the 4,000 square-foot space was once a warehouse. It was last a thrift store before Beardsley and Rose bought the property.
“It had a lot of junk in it, but the building’s in great shape,” Beardsley said.
They painted it the building, rebuilt the inside to give it an “industrial” look, stained the floors, and more. And while the Bremerton area is now home to three recreational pot stores, Rose is confident they’ve found a niche on the East side.
“We’re the closest store in the county until you get to Bainbridge Island,” said Rose, who worked for the school district and various jobs before landing what he called his dream. “We’re really excited to be able to service the north end.”
Their plans do not end at a pot shop, however. By the holidays, they plan to open an “annex” on the site that will sell store merchandise. And come springtime, they hope to open a glass blowing studio that will attract not just those looking to make their own pipes and bongs, but any kind of glassware.
The store is open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursdays; 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday.
![FullSizeRender[4]](http://pugetsoundblogs.com/bremertonbeat/files/2015/08/FullSizeRender41.jpg)
Bremerton’s first recreational marijuana shop is open for business.
Pacific Cannabis Company held its soft opening on Tuesday at 625 North Callow Avenue, just days after state officials issued their license. Nestled in a storefront between China Wok and McGavin’s Bakery, the shop represents a coming tide of marijuana stores to Bremerton and Kitsap County.
A store called HWY 420 has been up and running since October on Charleston Beach Road, but alas, it’s just outside Bremerton city limits. Two other pot stores are awaiting licenses in Bremerton as well, one just up Callow at 11th Street and the other in East Bremerton on Hollis Street, according to city officials. Outside Bremerton, several stores have already opened in South Kitsap and on Bainbridge.
Pacific Cannabis is the sixth licensed here in Kitsap. It’s been a long time coming for Kristen Waters, its CEO, who formerly owned an auto shop Port Orchard. She applied through the Liquor Control Board in November 2013 for the license.
The store’s decor includes boogie boards and an ocean wave motif. Waters wanted the 500-square-foot storefront to have a “warm and welcoming” feel, a contrast to some rather drab environs she’s found at other pot stores around the state.
Her own entrance to the pot marketplace came through illness. Waters endured chemotherapy a few years ago and it all but killed her appetite (she’d prefer not utter even the name of the illness from which she suffered). Down to 109 pounds, she tried pot and was able to eat again.
“I never dreamed at 47 that I’d be into marijuana,” she joked.
The store will offer a wide variety of edible pot products and will feature Tommy Chong’s brand. For now, their inventory is only building up but staff expected to have much more in stock by Friday. A gram on Tuesday was going for $12 or $13 and joints were selling for $9. Waters plans to keep prices consistent and low as possible to be competitive.
The store’s hours will be 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, and 10 a.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.
Below, you’ll find a map of all recreational marijuana locations by way of my colleague Tad Sooter, the Kitsap Sun’s business reporter.
