[Story Updated Jan. 17]
One of San Francisco’s leading cannabis retailers — The Apothecarium — has enlarged its local footprint with a third store that’s ready to host a grand opening campaign today with the goal of fighting cannabis’ stigma among business professionals. Just make double-sure your boss is into it before you invite her or him for the club’s 20 percent “colleagues” discount.
The Apothecarium SOMA holds a re-grand opening for both medical and recreational guests at 9:30 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 16 at 527 Howard St. where it has bought out and replaced the medical dispensary Igzactly420. Privately owned, The Apothecarium declined to share terms of the transaction except to say it pursued the deal.
Following an initial redesign, The Apothecarium SOMA is now ready for its grand re-opening with a week of discounts aimed at tech and finance workers and residents in a neighborhood newly elevated by high-rise towers and big-ticket employers. All adults 21 and over can shop there with a valid form of identification. You do not need to be a medical patient.
“We want to get the word out that many people who enjoy cannabis are also high-achieving professionals,” said Eliot Dobris, The Apothecarium’s spokesman. “We want to fight the unfair stigma against cannabis by reminding folks that people from all walks of life use cannabis.”
A 2017 consumer analysis by the research group BDS Analytics concluded the :
average annual household income for California’s cannabis consumers is $93,800, versus $72,800 for [non-users] and $75,900 for those opposed to cannabis regulation.
Bring a colleague from your company — be it the CEO or the security guard — to The Apothecarium SOMA between Monday and Friday (Jan. 22-26) next week and both of you will receive 20 percent off your purchases. Just show your business card or badge.
There’ll also be 20 percent-off discounts for certain professions throughout the week: lawyers (Monday, Jan. 22); programmers and engineers (Tuesday, Jan. 23), architects and designers (Wednesday, Jan. 24), marketers and salespeople (Thursday, Jan. 25), and assistants, admins and local construction workers (Friday, Jan. 26).
Dobris said The Apothecarium changed its retailing for the new store’s target audience, emphasizing sleek vape pens and inconspicuous edibles over pungent flowers and potent extracts.
“We’ve found that the cannabis products preferred by this audience is different from what we see in our other dispensaries,” Dobris said. “At our SOMA dispensary, we sell a lot of edibles and vape pens. These products are easy to use and are more discrete compared to flowers and concentrates, which are more popular at our other dispensaries.”
Dobris said The Apothecarium SOMA’s initial redecorating — currently lacking The Apothecarium’s signature chandeliers and marble but a step up from Igzactly420’s suburban rumpus room vibe — will be followed soon with a makeover by Urban Chalet, the same firm that designed The Apothecarium’s dispensaries in the Marina and the Castro districts, the latter of which was recently named by Architectural Digest as the best-designed dispensary in the U.S.
One thing that’ll be most notable to anyone who visited Igzactly420: there’s no more vape lounge at The Apothecarium SOMA. No reason was given.
There’ll be a ceremonial ribbon-cutting at The Apothecarium SOMA at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at 527 Howard St., San Francisco.