![]() Mile High Green Cross, a Capitol Hill dispensary under the Pure Greens ownership group, was closed in May to make room for another Pure Greens-owned store, La Conte's, in the same neighborhood. That is the toughest part."ĭispensary takeovers have occurred at a high rate over the last two years, but permanent closures were rare in Denver until recently. We had an incredible team there of over 100 employees at Buddy Boy. "That's the most unfortunate part about it. We're not seeing less foot traffic, but the average ticket price is dramatically down, and the prices are so low," Fritzel adds.īuddy Boy employees will not be retained or transferred to his other companies, which are "completely different businesses," Fritzel says. "The prices of everything we need to use as a business have gone up while the price of everything we sell as a business has gone down. He doesn't plan to close those businesses, he says, but adds that he's been forced to adopt a more wholesale-friendly model as the price of retail marijuana continues to fall and inflation hits other areas. "The novelty is wearing off."įritzel is also an owner of Lightshade, a chain of eleven dispensaries operating in Aurora, Denver and Federal Heights, as well as Denver medical dispensary PotCo. The industry as a whole, unless you're in a limited license market, is really struggling," he notes. At the same point in 2021, dispensaries had brought in over $768 million.įormer Buddy Boy locations will be listed for sale, Fritzel says, and "the vultures are already circling." But Buddy Boy's closures are just the tip of the iceberg in an oversaturated market with growing competition from states newer to retail legalization, he adds. Through the first four months of 2022, dispensaries collected just under $612 million, DOR data shows. ![]() April 2022 was the eleventh straight month of falling dispensary sales on a year-over-year basis, while the price of wholesale marijuana flower fell over 46 percent on average from January 2021 to April of this year, according to the state Marijuana Enforcement Division. Sales volume and wholesale marijuana prices began falling last summer, however. "With the new regulations at the first year cutting daily allowable concentrate limits by 80 percent, as well as all of the inflationary conditions and overall market retraction, it was just too much," Fritzel notes.Ĭolorado dispensaries broke marijuana sales records in 2021, bringing in over $2.2 billion. But overall marijuana sales numbers and wholesale prices have been dropping, as well. Medical marijuana sales quickly dropped, totaling $85.7 million in the first four months of 2022, down more than 43 percent from the same span in 2021, according to the state Department of Revenue. According to Fritzel, 90 percent of Buddy Boy's revenue came from medical sales, but those began nosediving this year, after a new law took effect on January 1 that limited the daily amount of purchasable medical marijuana concentrate to 8 grams, rather than the previous 40 grams. If there was a ray of light and the numbers were improving, we would have tried."Īll seven of Buddy Boy's dispensaries offered medical marijuana sales, and two of them were exclusive to medical patients. We would love to, but there's not enough capital in this market. "When you've got that kind of overhead, you just can't keep that going. ![]() "The bigger they are, the harder they fall," he says. According to Fritzel, the closures were all a matter of economics, and he predicts that things are likely to get worse for Colorado's marijuana industry. ![]() Owner John Fritzel confirmed the move to Westword, noting that he's already closed seven growing operations, as well. Reports of Buddy Boy's imminent end began circling on social media on June 9, as management told employees that all seven stores would close. Buddy Boy, a chain of seven dispensaries in Denver founded in 2014, will close on June 17. ![]()
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