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Overview:
In a city known for cannabis, does 4/20 make a difference for local businesses? Employees at dispensaries around Eugene said the answer was a definitive “yes.”
Twas the day of 4/20, all across Eugene. Not a creature was stirring. They had all had their greens.
OK, Eugene’s population was obviously not universally stoned Monday, April 20, thanks to the date falling on a cloudy Monday. But the annual marijuana-celebrating holiday brought customers into local dispensaries with promotional discounts.
But this is a city known for cannabis friendliness, with stray skunky wafts smellable at many corners. How much of a difference does the 20th day of April actually make?
Employees at dispensaries around Eugene said the answer was a definitive “yes.” Multiple cannabis workers called the day “the Black Friday of weed.”
“It’s the biggest day of the year,” said Mike Antonucci, the owner of SpaceBuds The Dispensary. “I’d say, at least, quadruple the average day.”
Preparation for the big day means setting up special deals, assembling swag bags, setting up wheels to spin for prizes and making sure the quick-to-go inventory items were ready on hand.
At SpaceBuds, budtender and social media manager Bea Morris said the science fiction-themed shop was sure to stock up on prerolls, for people to smoke up as soon as possible without the need for a pipe or bong.
It’s part of how the dispensary vies for attention on a busy day for a bustling industry, in addition to big discounts (20% off flower, 40% off select brands) bringing customers in.
“Eugene is a really oversaturated market for cannabis,” she said. “You walk 20 minutes in any direction you’re going to hit a dispensary in Eugene. Today makes a really big difference.”
At TJ’s on Willamette in downtown Eugene, chief of staff Brittany Baker said the holiday takes months of planning and stocking up to weather the increased foot traffic. She said that while many customers have a home base dispensary, 4/20 sees customers “dispensary hop” and try out new spots.
“This is the day we wait all year for,” she said.
Diane Deal, 71, stopped into TJ’s on Willamette to pick up some gummies and an indica strain of cannabis flower. She had a high barometer for quality flower.
“Something that’s gonna knock my dick in the dirt,” Deal said. (She went with the Mule Fuel.)
At Sorority House, a campus-area dispensary in a historic former sorority house, manager Summer Gallaher said that the store gets busy during football season, hawking prerolls to visiting parents. She said it typically sees a couple hundred people on a busy football day; 4/20 usually sees more than double that.
“It’s our weed Christmas,” Gallaher said.
On a table set up on the lawn outside, Entourage Cannabis gave away free vegan gummies in tangerine and pink lemonade flavors. The Eugene-based brand sees 4/20 as a major marketing opportunity, and had tables peppered at more than 60 dispensaries throughout Oregon for the holiday.
But passersby looking for a free buzz may have been disappointed: the candies contained no THC, a quirk of legality to bypass rules against giving away edibles outside of the actual dispensary. Thomas Corley, chef and kitchen manager for Entourage, said he prepared close to 10,000 “nonmedicated” candies for samples.
“It was definitely lots of sticky days in the kitchen,” he said.
For some people, though, it was business as usual.
Christy, who declined to share her last name, has been smoking weed since she was 13. She was smoking a joint outside of the bus station in downtown Eugene when a reporter asked how different 4/20 was for her.
“I didn’t even know,” she said. “It’s just an everyday thing for me.”
