Published
Tue, Sep 27, 2016, 17:02
- The Berkeley City Council granted the ailing record shop the sixth dispensary license in the Bay Area city.
Amoeba will open a medical marijuana dispensary in its Berkeley location.
The Telegraph Ave branch in hippie haven Berkeley was the first of Amoeba's three California stores. Business has been slow as of late, and Amoeba's weed-friendly ownership group has been trying to prop up profits with medical marijuana for some time now. The San Francisco location hosts a company called Green Evaluations on-site that goes as far as featuring a photo of Amoeba founder Marc Weinstein on its homepage, but the Berkeley decision, allowing Amoeba to operate in the medical marijuana and record businesses simultaneously, is unprecedented.
Last week, the Berkeley City Council granted the record shop a license allowing them to dispense medical marijuana out of their Telegraph Av. storefront. The store, which will be located at 2465 Telegraph Ave, will be called BC3, for Berkeley Compassionate Care Collective. It's only the sixth dispensary in Berkeley.
One councillor took issue with Amoeba's application, reports Berkeleyside. City councillor Darryl Moore said "What deeply concerns me is that we’re trying to prop up a business by allowing it to have a dispensary in it, at the cost of a dispensary that has been there from the very start," referring to the Berkeley Patients Care Collective (PCC), which is located just a block away.
It will be a couple months before Berkeley Compassionate Care Collective obtains the Department of Planning and Development permits required to sell pot alongside vinyl, CDs and DVDs.
(Full disclosure: Matt McDermott is a former Amoeba Music Hollywood employee.)