MONTAGUE — 253 Farmacy opened Thursday as the only marijuana retail store in Franklin County with on-site cultivation and manufacturing, and only the second retail store in the county otherwise.
The store won’t be selling its home-grown products until probably this spring. Final approval of the company’s cultivation license is pending, so at soonest growing could start in October or November, putting the first harvest in March or April, said co-owner Seth Rutherford. Until then, the store is stocked with wholesale products.
Once cultivation is up and running, the store’s plan is for 70 percent of its offerings to be its own products, and 30 percent to be from other companies, Rutherford said. There will be 15 custom-bred strains available at a time, with strains being phased in and out about every three to five months, Rutherford said.
“A lot of cannabis isn’t just the testing results. It’s the smell, it’s the look, it’s the color,” he said. “We’re trying to educate people that it’s not always the highest TAC (total available cannabinoid) that’s the best for you.”
The store also has a diverse menu of chocolates, gummies and hard candies, plus tinctures and topical creams, Rutherford said. As with the bud menu, manufactured items are not made onsite until March or April, when 253 Farmacy’s cultivation and manufacturing are fully operational.
Along with its unique offerings, 253 Farmacy emphasizes the quality of its customer experience. Rutherford describes it with terms like “white-glove service,” “resort-style” and “craft products”; retail workers are “bud tenders” or “bud-istas.”
Rutherford is one of four co-owners of diverse professional backgrounds. Rutherford, originally from Shutesbury, lived in Nantucket for 22 years, working in landscaping and construction. He did the landscaping outside 253 Farmacy. Meanwhile, Alan Shorr is a Broadway producer, Marcia Wagner owns a law firm and Chris Gallant, a cousin of Rutherford, is a woodworker and general contractor in Nantucket. Gallant designed the store’s cabinetry.
The company’s CEO is Lee Olesen, who has seven years of experience in the cannabis business, having owned and built stores and growing facilities in Colorado, California and Arizona.
About four years ago, Rutherford and Gallant worked with a friend who was running a medical marijuana business in Maine. They started working toward opening their own cannabis business about two years ago, finalizing a host agreement with Montague in April 2018.
The building was the photo lab of the Hallmark Institute of Photography, and was empty for about 10 years before 253 Farmacy moved in, Rutherford said. The old building was gutted to a shell; 253 Farmacy is an essentially new building with only the footprint and skeleton of the old one, he said.
The retail space — which takes about 3,000 square feet of the whole building’s 33,000 square feet — is styled partway between a health food store and a smoke shop. There are shelves of rolling papers, vaporizers and glassware made by local glassblowers. Behind the counter are large glass jars of the available strains of cannabis bud. Edibles are kept in pharmacy-style fridges with clear glass doors.
Customers arrive through a waiting room, where on busy days a receptionist will buzz them in so that the store can maintain a low customer-employee ratio, Rutherford said. The space is decorated with vintage issues of “High Times” and other memorabilia.
The whole effect is to create a calm and welcoming environment, Rutherford said. The store hopes to draw middle-aged customers who have never had cannabis or haven’t had it in a long time, so it has to be a comfortable environment for them, he said.
The secluded location, on the way between Turners Falls and Millers Falls, was chosen partly for that reason, Rutherford said. The building has 65 parking spots for customers, so parking shouldn’t be an issue, he said.
Catering to people who may not be familiar with cannabis, the store has guidebooks and pamphlets on using cannabis safely, and storing it securely and out of reach of pets and children, and logbooks to help customers keep track of how different products affect them.
253 Farmacy hopes to expand to two more retail stores in Massachusetts, which would be supplied by the cultivation and manufacturing in Montague, Rutherford said. The company has prospective locations for a new store but hasn’t gotten municipal approval yet, Rutherford said.
253 Farmacy is at 253 Millers Falls Road. Hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays.
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 261.