
Cookies will open a dispensary on 8 Mile Road in Detroit Jan. 31, the first of the company’s storefronts delivered in partnership with licensed Michigan cultivator and retailer Gage Cannabis Co.
Founder and CEO Berner will be on-site Friday morning to welcome medical cannabis customers to this new store, one that will feel similar to Cookies dispensaries in Oakland and Modesto, Calif., where the company is based.
“We feel that Michigan is probably one of the most important markets in the marijuana business,” he said on a recent call with reporters. “It’s probably one of the most educated markets when it comes to quality and the culture of herb. They’ve been a strong state that’s been knowledgeable about herb for a long time.”
On Friday morning, the Cookies team will host a blue street party, reflecting the brand’s color, with food trucks, heated tents and “special surprises beginning at midnight.” A ribbon-cutting at the store, 6030 E. 8 Mile Road, will take place at 8:45 a.m.
The dispensary will be stocked with Cookie genetics cultivated by Gage Cannabis Co., which owns four cultivation facilities in the state, as well as G Pen products (also under the Cookies umbrella owned by Berner). Cookies-brand flower includes: Georgia Pie, Cereal Milk, Snowman and Ice Cream Cake.
“They’re just good operators,” Berner said of the Gage team. “They grow good cannabis. With any partnership that we do, we cherry-pick the best operators and producers. They fit every aspect of what we’re looking for.” He added that the conversations with Gage leadership went back four years, an in-depth vetting process that culminated with the partnership announcement last year. (Former Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton joined Gage Cannabis Co. as an executive chair in September 2019.)
Presently, the city of Detroit does not allow adult-use cannabis sales. The moratorium is set through March 31, reportedly to provide city council members a chance to sort out a local social equity program for the burgeoning cannabis industry. It’s unclear whether the city will be ready to lift the moratorium by the end of March. In the meantime, this is Cookies’ first foray into the medical-only environment.
To gin up excitement, Berner hosted parties in Detroit while on tour as a rapper, and now he’s bringing back the Cookies bus for a block party. The key, he said, to the brand awareness and marketing power that’s needed in the cannabis space, is “letting music and culture speak for itself.” Whereas the California market has a more established customer base, Berner rolled out Cookies billboards in Michigan. The hope is that word of mouth will do a lot of the leg work, too, once the store is open.
He cautioned against the bootleg cannabis products that proliferate in the Midwest’s illicit cannabis markets. Fake Cookies-branded products have been sold in the state, he said, and he’s eager to get his brand’s boots on the ground.
And the layout of the dispensary—the traffic flow inside the store, so to speak—is a big part of that.
“I created a round flower table, so people huddle up around it,” he said. "When you smoke herb, usually you’re in a circle. When you have a huddle in a football game, you’re in a circle. When you have a good conversation, you face each other. So, the way we designed the layout of the store is you come in and a budtender greets you with an iPad. They bring you to the flower table, and you’re around other people looking at flower. I think it’s a really unique experience.”