Kitchen Toke, the 411 on 420 employees, Chicago citizens lighting up legally and more...
In this Issue
Kitchen Toke creates new recipes for cannabis commercialization
Is it now OK with HR to imbibe off hours? Mostly, a lawyer explains...
Grown In appears on CBS Radio/WBBM “High” Noon Business Hour
Chicago Magazine celebrates April 20th in its January Edition
Illinois Cannabis Company Tracker: Cresco Labs, Green Thumb Industries, PharmaCann, Grassroots Cannabis
Roll Call: Dan Tierney, Heather Steans, Badal Shah, John Pletz, Dina Rollman
Back of the page: 4-hour waits, thumbs up J.B., a note to readers
Kitchen Toke creates new recipes for cannabis commercialization
Joline Rivera, an entrepreneur and culinary creative director for organizations ranging from Brooklyn’s Sweet Paul magazine to US Foods, lived somewhat of an “anti-drug” life until only a few years ago.
Today she runs a multimedia “lifestyle brand” focused on culinary cannabis.“I was really busy staying away from drugs growing up,” explains the Des Moines native-turned longtime Chicagoan, who did everything she could do to flee a household consumed with drugs and alcohol.
Working her way through degrees at hometown Drake University and then Syracuse University, Rivera established a name for herself in the culinary influencer community with gigs at companies like Meredith Publishing and The Food Network. She is an expert culinary communicator.
In 2016, a close friend’s father was afflicted with cancer, which was made more complicated due to a lack of appetite. Rivera cautiously went about creating some cannabis-infused chocolates to see if that would help, and then drove with her friend to St. Louis to deliver the goods in person.
“Here’s this Mexican from Chicago giving some weed to this very strict Irish Catholic family,” she recalled with a nervous laugh. “He ate three of them in a row, and I watched it work with him. It was a defining moment.”
This experience, combined with liberalizing laws in Colorado and other states at the time, encouraged Rivera to open a new line of business.
“I took what I was doing everyday and just added cannabis as an ingredient,” she said.
A multimedia company is formed
Founded in 2017, Chicago-based Kitchen Toke publishes a quarterly printed journal of recipes carried by 2,500 retailers nationwide and abroad. The 5-person company also provides white label content for Leafly, a popular dispensary locator and information curator, regularly posts content on YouTube, Instagram and other channels, and has a cooking companion app in the works.
The commercial success of Rivera’s self-funded enterprise combined with a deliberate integration of cannabis within her own daily diet has flipped the script in terms of her feelings toward what was until today an illegal plant in Illinois. This spurs new creativity in the kitchen.
“There is so much more about the plant than just getting high,” she said. “I had to re-learn how cannabis can be really helpful. It is a plant and we can use it to feed us in different ways.”
A few pro tips from Rivera
Sugar is a buzzkill: “If you mix cannabis with sugar, you have to double-up. If this is a medicine, we need to pay more attention to the food that it comes in.”
Be Mindful of The Endocannabinoid System: “They need to be fed, and you need to be eating plants everyday to feed them. There is so much we don’t know yet.”
Indica? Sativa? Don’t matta: “That’s not really a thing anymore. Pay attention to the terpenes. Do this for all the reasons you pay attention to an orange. It’s all about the flavor.”
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Is it now OK with HR to imbibe off hours? Mostly, a lawyer explains...
Now that cannabis is a “lawful product” in Illinois, it will be more difficult for employers to penalize workers who consume it on their own time.
Amit Bindra, a partner at The Prinz Law Firm, explains what exployees, employers and entrepreneurs should know.
Grown In Illinois: How does the relationship between Illinois businesses and their employees change as a result of the new law?
Amit Bindra: The short answer is that an employer can’t discriminate against an employee merely for using cannabis outside of work, with certain exceptions.
When Illinois legalized the use and sale of recreational marijuana, the state also amended the “Illinois Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act.” The Privacy Act prevents a business from discriminating against an employee that uses “lawful products” when the employee isn’t working. The new amendment defines “lawful products” as “products that are legal under state law,” creating an exception for recreational cannabis.
Because of the new law, most companies will likely change their drug testing policies and procedures.
Grown In: Under what conditions can employers continue to prohibit workers from consuming THC-based cannabis now that the plant is freely available?
Amit: Companies can still have drug-free environments and implement reasonable zero tolerance work policies. Companies can also prohibit employees from using, or possessing, cannabis at work. And companies can prohibit an employee from using cannabis while the employee is “on call.” Under the new law, “on call” means that the employee has at least 24 hours’ notice that the employee may have to work or is on standby.
This part is important – the new laws do not apply to companies who have to comply with federal laws, companies that are regulated by the Department of Transportation, or companies that have additional requirements to receive federal or state funding or contracts.
Grown In: Are there particular times during the week when employees should or should not feel free to imbibe?
Amit: A company can prohibit employees from using cannabis while the employee is working or is “on call.” But it will be difficult for companies to test to determine whether an employee is under the use of cannabis.
Grown In: Does adult-use legalization impact existing rights medical users have?
Amit: Medical marijuana users will continue to have the same protections as before.
Grown In: What should new companies being formed to sell, process or grow marijuana in Illinois be thinking about from an employment structuring standpoint?
Amit: There are three big picture things to consider.First, new cannabis companies are still businesses, so cannabis companies have to abide by state and federal employment laws (which include properly paying employees, having appropriate company policies, etc.) Companies will still want to consider precautions to maintain a competitive advantage through confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-solicitation, and non-competition agreements. Since cannabis companies are also essentially start-ups, some companies will consider additional financial incentives for their employees.
Second, because legal cannabis is a new industry, it will evolve and change quickly. It is unclear what protections state courts in Illinois will provide to these businesses. And the intersection between federal law and cannabis remains in the grey area. Due to the uncertainty of the current legal landscape for cannabis companies, smart businesses should draft their agreements narrowly to minimize legal scrutiny.
Finally, cannabis companies have licensing requirements other companies do not have, including additional training.
Grown In appears on CBS Radio/WBBM “High” Noon Business Hour
For the second time in a month, Grown In was privileged to discuss emerging Illinois-based cannabis commercialization opportunities with the WBBM Noon Business Hour.
On December 27 (beginning at the 21:20 mark) we discussed operational to-dos for small business owners getting into the industry, and why it’s perfect symmetry that billboards for Brian Urlacher’s hair replacement technology are now being used to sell weed.
In an earlier podcast, Grown In got “into the weeds” along with Cresco Labs and others to explain how Illinois professionals and investors might think about the newly normalized cannabis industry.
Chicago Magazine celebrates April 20th in its January Edition
From curated cannabis recommendations to advice on how to properly roll a joint, Chicago Magazine dispenses everything you want to know and more about getting legally stoned in the Windy City.
Grown In publisher Brad Spirrison also shares a “Chicago Story” of dot-com era gossip columnist Ron “Give Me Your Card” May where cannabis makes an early cameo.
Illinois Cannabis Company Tracker: Cresco Labs, Green Thumb Industries, PharmaCann, Grassroots Cannabis
Each week, Grown In: Illinois shares a thing or two about the largest cannabis companies in the country that just so happened to be based in The Land of Lincoln.
An operator of the Sunnyside dispensary in Wrigleyville, as well as among the state’s largest cultivators of cannabis, Chicago-based Cresco Labs has a unique vantage point as to how supply meets demand on Opening Day for recreational sales.
It’s like a bizarro version of a new iPhone coming out, or the opening of a Starbucks shopping center.
Explained Cresco Chief Communication Officer Jason Erkes to WTTW and others in the days before adult-use cannabis consumption went legal: “The launch of anything new, where there’s excitement – whether it’s a shoe or an iPhone – it’s hard to meet that initial thrust of demand. But if there are shortages, I don’t think it will be all products and there will be a replenishment of supply really quickly.”
Publicly traded Cresco also has additional stores in Champaign, Rockford and Elmwood Park that are now serving recreational and medical customers. The company's Buffalo Grove location is currently still exclusive to medical users.
Green Thumb Industries
While Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries doesn’t have any of its Rise stores open in its home municipality, the publicly traded cannabis cultivator, processor and retailer is fully operational in Mundelein, Quincy, Canton, Joliet (two stores).
PharmaCann
The Oak Park-based company is preparing for daily cannabis menu updates and iterations to its Verilife Dispensary in Romeoville.
PharmaCann marketing director Megan Ogden tells Patch that "once we have an understanding of demand, [the menu] should stabilize."
PharmaCann, which was to be acquired in October for $682 million by MedMen in a deal that was later killed, also operates dispensaries in Arlington Heights, North Aurora, and Ottawa. The company also has cultivation centers in Dwight and Hillcrest.
Grassroots Cannabis
As Grassroots Cannabis waits for the ink to dry on its anticipated $875 million sale to Wakefield, Mass.-based Curaleaf, the Highland Park-based cannabis grower, processor and retailer sold two separate properties in Pennsylvania and North Dakota that comprise a combined 105,000 square feet for $24.1 million.
The acquirer is San Diego-based Innovative Industrial Properties Inc., a Real Estate Investment Trust that plans to lease back the space to its previous owner(s).
Roll Call: Dan Tierney, Heather Steans, Badal Shah, John Pletz, Dina Rollman
A few words about five pioneers and personalities impacting Illinois-based cannabis industries.
Dan Tierney – Founder of Wicklow Capital
A pioneer of the high-speed financial trading industry, venture capital investor and benefactor of democratic candidates and causes, Dan Tierney is long on weed. The founder and former CEO of Getco LLC financially was an early investor in Oak Park-based PharmaCann and L.A.-based MedMen (whose deal to acquire PharmCann for $682 million went poof in October.) Tierney, who believes there are more constructive ways for government and “Big Business” to collaborate, invests through his family office at Wicklow Capital.
Heather Steans – Illinois State Senator, 7th District
One of the architects of the Cannabis Regulation and Taxation Act that permits adult-use cannabis in Illinois, Illinois State Senator Heather Steans regularly guides interested constituencies on new regulations and opportunities associated with the law. Steans, whose 7th District includes Uptown and much of the far North Side of Chicago, also chairs the Senate’s Appropriation Committee and previously helped pass legislation to bring marriage equality to Illinois.
Badal Shah – CEO of The Anthos Group and serial entrepreneur
From Chicago and Barrington Hills, Badal Shah runs an L.A.-based cannabis company with farming operations in Oregon. He is CEO of CBD therapeutics retailer The Anthos Group, which acquired his 18-month-old startup in 2019. Previously Shah started, raised venture capital for and then sold TurboAppeal, an online tax software startup. You can learn more about his Badal and love of life by reading this Town & Country profile.
John Pletz – Technology and Cannabis reporter, Crain's Chicago Business
The lead technology reporter for Crain’s Chicago Business, John Pletz is also among those most in the know about anything related to cannabis commercialization in Illinois. His coverage includes stories about local cannabis companies going public, as well as new investors and personalities entering the industry. You can also follow him on municipal news and the race to build dispensaries in Chicago now that the state is ready for prime time.
Dina Rollman – SVP, Government and Regulatory Affairs for Green Thumb Industries and co-founder Illinois Women in Cannabis
When Gina Rollman is not handling compliance issues for Green Thumb Industries (GTI), a publicly traded multi-state cultivator and distributor of a product that currently violates federal law, she is helping other women working at various Illinois-based cannabis organizations get to know each other better. She serves as the co-founder of Illinois Women in Cannabis (IWC), networking organization for specialists in everything in agriculture and advertising to finance and patient care. She previously had a law practice and served as Assistant Inspector General for the State of Illinois.
Back of the page: 4-hour waits, thumbs up J.B., a note to readers
A few observations from some light on-the-ground reporting on the north side of Chicago this morning.
Smiling Chicago police officers escorting Wrigleyville shoppers across Clark Street to buy their designer drugs at Cresco Labs’ Sunnyside location one block north of the ballpark. Local security said people began lining up at around 1AM. At 10:40AM, a gentleman who first got in line at 5:45AM walked out with a bright yellow bag of something. Although one could smell the aroma of weed from the front Madden’s Post one block south, the police officers onsite didn’t seem concerned.
A check-in booth in Andersonville inviting Dispensary 33 patrons to shop local while they wait. Weeks ago, the boutique dispensary with a highly curated selection of goods, instructed its followers to arrive early, leave a cell phone number at check-in (2020 version of a deli order) then shop, nosh and explore with special offerings from an array of community partners.
Several hundred people waiting in line who were so excited to be a part of history that they didn’t mind spending hours in 33 degree (albeit very sunny) conditions. Although from a different strain, this is similar to those who buy coffee before getting in line for the Starbucks Chicago Roastery. Whatever gets you through the night.
More than 11,000 with weed convictions pardoned on December 31 – Governor Prizker, to borrow a phrase from former Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times columnist and current Wake N’ Bake Club co-host Steve Rosenbloom, “your table is ready”.
A note to Grown In readers
We sincerely appreciate you reading, sharing and critiquing Grown In: Illinois since our inaugural edition on December 3.
Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more ways to engage in the Grown In community. If you are not already a subscriber, we invite you to sign up here.
If you have a story idea, commercial inquiry or wish to access previous issues, please don’t hesitate to email brad@grownin.com.
Happy New Year!