How Would You Compare New Mexico’s Cannabis Industry as it Compares to Colorado?
I think certainly New Mexico’s not as mature as Colorado or a couple other states, but it’s catching up. I think it’s also the size of the market that affects how people do business. I mean, let’s face it, New Mexico has two and a half million people. Denver has more than that. So you have a lot of people going after same customer, you know what I mean? For example, I mean in Santa Fe itself, which is probably less than a hundred thousand people, there’s got to be at least 20 dispensaries, if not 25.
Some of these are obviously owned, obviously we know Best Daze has, I think they’re going to have five by the end of the year, five stores in Santa Fe. I spoke with the owner and asked him why and he just said, Hey look, I don’t care if they’re cannibalizing each other. I want to own the market in this town. That’s what they’re doing and they have a pretty good investment portfolio, so they’re going to be all right. You also have multi-state operators coming in. Certainly Harvest is one that I can think of right off the top of my head. I think Everest might be multi-state also. That is a little different I think, than Colorado was. From what I remember about our early days in the business up in Colorado, there wasn’t a lot of outstate money. It wasn’t like there was California companies coming in and buying everything up. That I think is a difference.
How Do New Mexico’s Cannabis Regulations Compare to Colorado?
I think one of the biggest differences is actually regulatory. New Mexico has a problem with the Department of Health and the resources they’re putting behind regulating this. It seems that they’ve gotten a little more, not on the ball, but proactive in terms of enforcing what the regulations are. They have found as ure wants, but there are out-state products coming into the market and it’s something as simple as one product, me, medicinals, to tons of Oklahoma grown weeded coming over the state line. So that’s been a problem. They’ve also discovered that there are renegade dispensaries. People could just set up a dispensary and they don’t have any license, et cetera. So they’ve closed down a couple of those. I think there was a place in Albuquerque called, I think it was Paradise, but they closed that down. So in terms of how the business is done, I think the basic retail part of it is the same, certainly because it’s not that tricky. But in terms of I think people investing in it, I’ve seen more out-of-state money here than I think I’ve seen in Colorado.