Latest / Ready To Drink Podcast / AB Bottle Co owner Tony Piccini on why hemp THC beverages are the American dream, not a loophole.

Transcript

AB Bottle Co owner Tony Piccini on why hemp THC beverages are the American dream, not a loophole. · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Tony Pacini, and I own AV Bottle Co.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: on Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we are a small, really small craft beer-focused tap room bottle shop.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've been in business for 10 years.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've owned this place for six.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Moved to North Carolina from Phoenix, Arizona, where I worked in advertising and I was also a homebrewer, worked for uh the Arizona Society of Homebrewers, got into distribution myself.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I got my distribution license and brought the first Vermont beer into Arizona, Rock Art Brewing out of Vermont, where I'm originally from.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I ran that for about 10 years and then had a family situation where we had to move to North Carolina.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: My wife's father uh fell ill, so we came here and sold off the brands uh in Phoenix and moved here.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of how I ended up in eastern North Carolina.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're literally I'm sitting here, the beaches are the Atlantic Ocean's like an eighth of a mile right right up the causeway here.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of it's kind of cool place.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: What was the name of uh your distributorship out in uh Arizona?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Pitcher of Nectar Distributing.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh being from Vermont, big fish guy.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um kind of played, you know, it's a picture of nectar, dead pitcher of nectar, and found out that a pitcher of nectar is actually, I think it's a Hindu religion.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there the soul, you know, the forces of good and evil are fighting over the soul of humanity, which is in a pitcher of nectar.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I like it.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, been up to Vermont quite a bit.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh friend, buddy uh from high school, not another, I guess acquaintance, uh had a higher ground cafe there, which is a big music venue up there.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when I when I started this business, I was booking bands in the Mid Atlantic back in 08.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh while I was also working in the alcohol industry and stuff like that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously those two uh services uh paired well together in the on-premise scene.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So definitely, yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit about what the what for somebody that's never been to the area where your your uh your bottle shop's located right now, describe the community, the environment, and the types of consumers that kind of come into your place.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there's a tourist season component to it, but you just still have a year-round business with it.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, correct.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we right now we're seeing a lot of people coming in uh to rent houses.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, again, this is considered the southern outer banks.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not, you know, where everyone knows the uh outer banks.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is cool the way it's situated.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you're standing on the beach looking at the ocean, you're actually looking towards Miami, so you're looking south.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you get the sunrise and sunset over the ocean, which is real cool.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's kind of a it's a sleepy beach town most of the year.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Get picks up about this time through, you know, between between June and August, you know, it gets super busy here.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have a great local community.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's about 12 to 1,300 residents that live in Atlantic Beach.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have a great, like I said, regular crowd that comes in.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're not a late open place.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: We open at three and close at nine during the week.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of people that come in, have a couple beers.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I look at I've looked at craft beer, and I'm sure you have too, as a community-building uh experiment, you know.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: So people like to come in, they don't like loud music, they want to just sit and have a couple beers, you know, get caught up on things, talk to the bartenders.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have a great bar staff.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a more of a public house kind of feel.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: We are not a dive bar.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're very, you know, keep this place super clean.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I travel to get beer.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we literally are the only ones within 100 miles uh of us that have certain beers that you can't get anywhere else around here.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll go down to Wilmington, for example, it's two hours south of us and pick up beer from beer breweries that aren't you know being distributed up here.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of the way we've always operated the business, just making sure that we're offering something different for people.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um the you know, the beer geek, for example, like all our menu board is powered by untapped.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So people can check in here, they can check in their beers, they're on the screen, you know, on the on the menu board and really feel like they're a part of this.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I get a lot of input from people that come in and we try to accommodate as best as we can.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of what kind of where we are.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Show me around a little bit.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I see the cracking behind you, and yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we had a local artist do this octopus with the diver helmet.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we kind of went with a steampunk kind of theme.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then we got into the cryptozoology.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a whole wall of cryptozoology stuff over here, some Bigfoots, and I'm a big Bigfoot guy.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a Bigfoot and an alien tattoo on my on my left arm.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the bars here.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna walk over this way.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see we're we're a small place.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're about just under or shy of a thousand square feet.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we do have 12 taps.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't have the cooler lights on, but we have three coolers.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: We keep all our beer cold, and everything rotates.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Taps, everything in this cooler rotates.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't keep the same things.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's a few things we keep, but you know, with some ciders and things like that.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But other than that, and I'll walk over here to our THC wall, and we are selling quite a bit of THC, uh, you know, hemp-based products.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we do make cock in-house cocktails with a Willie's remedy.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's a 10 milligram, and we designed a few drinks.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've bartended quite a bit, so I've come up with some cool recipes.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: We do a we do a marga wita, we call it the marga wita, and we don't use any bar mix because bar mix gives me heartburn and it's full of sugar.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we use agave nectar and um you know the key lime juice and a shot of that, and then we do there's a I found a product we were doing egg whites on it when we shake it, so it would have that froth, and we were finding that we weren't making enough, so egg whites were getting thrown away.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: One of our suppliers gave us an option, which is really cool.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a um egless foaming agent that you can put in, and it gives it the same kind of froth.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also use in that, I don't know if you've heard of poppy prebiotic sodas.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we use uh the lemon lime soda in that as well, and that's kind of the filler to get you know the 16-ounce pour, but it's absolutely delicious.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah, that's awesome.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you got the functional aspect as well as the infusion aspect for it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: So you hit both sides.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll connect with you on the cryptid stuff too.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can you see?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Kindred spirits here, man.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I uh a couple years ago when I started this pod these podcasts, uh, I actually interviewed uh Laura Whaland uh over at Outerbanks Olive Oil Company, and I think they have uh front porch cafe and stuff like that.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's kind of it's interesting.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it's interesting years into this now, meeting guests, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I interviewed a couple years ago, somebody right down the road from you.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, perfect.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, tell let's talk a little bit about let's this is uh focused on kind of pushing through with uh regulate don't ruin nc.com.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: We want to we we're pushing through the advocacy campaign.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: We want to encourage your customers as well as those in the greater community, talk a little bit about you know where where the hemp beverages have gone with you when you started, and then if they disappeared tomorrow due to legislation and political issues, kind of what would that how would that affect your business and and the uh kind of how the layout of everything is moving forward?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, uh we started carrying THC very light, maybe uh yeah, there was a brand, I can't remember the name of it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the first ones that came out.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we just kept it at a small cooler that I think there are five, two, two and a half, five milligram.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and we that was about three years ago, and then we've built it up to a point where now, 2026.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just looked at some numbers over the last 18 months and it's become 35 percent of our business.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And oh wow, that's that's a large amount for a craft beer store.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we do sell primarily most of it is to go, so off-premise.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: We do carry everything from five milligrams all the way up to 60 milligrams per.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we got four packs that are 12-ounce cans of 60 milligram.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those we do not allow to drink on premise.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We'd max out at 10 milligrams.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anything over that, we'd encourage you to buy a four-pack and take it home.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have seen so Carter County where we're situated, the median age here is 51.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I have seen, especially over the last two years, a lot of people, uh, an older demographic that has stopped drinking alcohol completely, and they're coming in to purchase um you know, whatever, whatever they feel comfortable with.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I've been an advocate, I mean, I grew up in Vermont, so we've you know, so during the 80s.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned fish as well, so uh I may have targeted you.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so growing up in the 80s in Vermont, there was a lot of you know, marijuana.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a big advocate of it.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have since I've matured, I have seen a lot of more benefits to it than just getting high, getting relaxed, whatever.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I see a lot of the older demographics come in and they are purchasing.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if they haven't had it before, I've I'm a wealth of knowledge, so I will kind of guide them, talk to them.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: If they've never tried it, I'll you know, encourage them, maybe buy a five milligram, take it home, drink half of it, see how it affects you.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they always come back and they're like, Yeah, you were right, I like it.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they use it like a lot of people come in, use it as alternatives to pharmaceuticals.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're using it to alleviate some pain.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're helping them sleep.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I get that a lot.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, actually, have a bunch of customers that stop taking Tylenol PM, for example.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll just have a five milligram, 10 milligram seltzer before they go to bed, no hangover, you know, wake up in the morning refreshed, great night of sleep.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm seeing a lot of that, especially with the older demographic.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of a shame that we don't have such a young, younger crowd because I've been researching this across the country and seeing, you know, the younger population is not drinking as much.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they're, what is it, California sober or whatever you want to call it.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm assuming that's other things other than alcohol, which would include THC.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I'd I'd be curious to kind of see how that goes.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Last summer we had some college students that lived, you know, they were away for college that came here and they were coming in and drinking just THC, telling me they didn't drink.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they would come in for a couple 10 milligrams and then leave.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there's a lot, a lot of more positives with the THC business that I'm seeing with this hemp than negatives.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as far as if it went away tomorrow, I'd probably have to close my doors because 35% of our sales being a significant amount of total sales would result in us closing.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I would uh be afraid.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So um, whoever's listening, you know, really pay attention to that because I see a lot of small businesses that are doing similar things that we're doing with THC.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a significant part of the business, you know.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's also letting they call it a social tonic.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It can be, it can be an antisocial tonic, you know, at the same time, but it's getting people out, especially if you don't stop drinking.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can come out, have a five milligram, still sit there, sit here and have conversations.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's an important part of just being a human being, is getting that social aspect.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout the history of our lives, bars and public houses and community places, gathering places have always been there for people to meet.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our country was founded basically on a bunch of dudes sitting in a bar drink, you know, drinking whatever they were, drinking meat, or they they say tea, but I don't think they had the you know, the balls to go out and say, let's drink some tea and take on the uh largest, you know, military power in the world.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think they're I think the tea was more like the dogfish head saut tea than it was the thing we're thinking of.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're right.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think uh Philadelphia, you're I think it's like uh City Tavern or one of those places claims to be you know one of those original spots where they did that.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I I appreciate you given the history aspect of it.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And talk a little bit about, you know, you we've talked we talked off camera, you said 27 years in the beer business.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, talk a little bit about that evolution as well, too, like how you I I interviewed some people, and I actually had a great interview a couple months ago on somebody else's, or I was on somebody else's podcast where it was a brewer in Philadelphia, and he was talking about how originally when the hemp beverages came out, he thought it was competition, he wanted nothing to do with it, he wanted it dead.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, where did you feel like when it came out?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously your your Vermont and your uh your music days are gonna affect that as well, but talk about how you saw it folding into what already existed on the on-premise and actually being an enhancer to expanding your audience essentially, you know, and and now a place where it's a vital piece and pillar to your business.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, when I got into the beer business in Arizona distribution side, it was a new emerging market, craft beer there.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, there are plenty of spots, but I saw it grow to a point where I was like curious on when this bubble was gonna break.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of seeing that now.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I never thought of it as competition.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I thought of it as an enhancement to my business because, you know, let's face it, you're not you're not the alcohol, even though we love beer, alcohol is a lot more dangerous than as far as I'm concerned, THC beverages.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not gonna have a five milligram and pull out of here and get into an accident.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just not gonna happen.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I I I've never seen it.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I've never looked at it as competition.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I actually welcomed it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were one of the first ones in this area to carry it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: We were the first ones to make cocktails with the product that you know, we do the 10 milligram uh shot, ounce and a half shot, 10 milligrams of making cocktails, and a lot of the other places around here started hearing and seeing that coming in, asking questions, and then all of a sudden they're carrying it.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So um we've been very progressive as far as that goes, uh, bringing it here.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think because of the older demographic here, a lot of people, restaurant owners thought it would not be a good fit, and they are seeing now that yes, it is a good fit because I talked to restaurant owners around here that, you know, put up big numbers and they're significantly down on alcohol sales.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So these big restaurants that are seeing that happen are telling me, yeah, we probably need to bring in some THC and offer that as well.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, 30 35% is uh I was doing some market research in New Jersey a couple months ago, surveying about a hundred different retailers, and I was shocked to hear that they were 25 to 30 percent.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's also at the flip on the flip side of it, incredible for you to grow that category the way you did to be 35% of your business.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, personally, like I said, we I'm 20 years in the alcohol business and I'm three and a half years sober from alcohol, and not because I'm against alcohol, I still carry it around in my car or go door and sell it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's for me, it's as you know, you you you were in the business at the heyday as well as craft beer.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: We were we went pretty hard, and uh, and I had to I had to throw in the towel a couple years ago.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, the the industry was a lot different than it is today.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people entered the industry, uh, you know, the professionalism's a lot higher.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot, it's a it's a lot more uh uh more organized than it was back then.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean disorganized as much as it was such chaos of a wave, we were just riding it as hard as we could, as long as we could.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So now it's time to everybody's getting into the business aspect, understanding their numbers, and it's a whole different environment.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: So, like for me personally, these hemp beverages are the contributor to that sobriety.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they're the they're I tried four or five times prior.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: So everything you're talking about from a health aspect, as well as the biggest thing I missed the year I took out away, I left the business, it was I missed going to the bar, not drinking.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was just going to the bar, sitting at a bar stool and eating strangers.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And just like I am right now, doing this with you over Google Meet and dozens of people every month.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, what do you think it how do you think it would affect?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously, let's make the assumption, would you would you say it would affect the on-premise foot traffic, regardless, uh as well?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like people might pull back and go buy stuff online or figure out another way because if that stuff doesn't exist, there's probably a decent amount of the audience that may not go into any bar regardless of where they are.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I again the the people that come in here, it's mostly off-premise.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll come in, purchase, and then leave, uh, as far as the hemp goes.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how states get around the purchasing online.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I know I see a lot of Willie's uh products.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess he has gummies now and and flour and everything else that you can purchase online and get it shipped to you.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Personally, I think that just knowing what I know from you know being a hemp advocate and uh you know marijuana advocate for 30 plus years, people are gonna go to the black market.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that to me is scary, especially these days, because all of a sudden you're looking at not only more arrests when people shouldn't be in jail for you know possession of marijuana.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't happen.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um but the fentanyl issue, you know, I've seen a lot of cases where people are getting laced marijuana with you know fentanyl, and it's it's just a sad you know story of the time we live in.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're gonna go backwards.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've really seen people wait, you know, eyes opening to this product.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen the stigma behind it leaving because again, the older demographic, these are probably parents of people my age during the 80s that what didn't want anything to do with marijuana.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was a drug, the weed, the devil's lettuce, whatever you wanted to call it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they're the ones coming around and saying, you know what?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm retired, I live at the beach, I don't drink anymore.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's nothing better than getting mellow on a 10 milligram seltzer and watching the sunset over the ocean.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I that's you know, that's what it is.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just got chills when you said that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a dream moment right there.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that's that's what I'm seeing with these people.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um there's gonna be a lot of public backlash if this goes away.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's funny that the suite next door to us, we're uh the building we're in is a four-suite you know, uh building.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Our landlord is on the far end, and they're from New Jersey, they're a pizza pizza place.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Next door to us directly is a Delta IX THCA dispensary.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: My son actually works next door, he's actually next door right now.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's 22.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: He knows more about marijuana than I ever did, which is you know great.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: But he's he's one of those guys, you know, the older people go in there and they talk to him and he guides them in the right direction as well.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's another small business that potentially could go out of business, you know.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're looking at the pizza guy with two empty suites trying to rent those in a tough economic time, especially going out of the summer and into the winter.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Could have two vacant spots here for a while.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the reality of what I how I look at it.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think um I think that it's important for the audience, both watching and and listening, to understand the severity of what's being discussed right now.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're not talking about a recreational fund, it is a recreational fund thing.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: But we're talking about a vital pillar of the revenue stream for your business as well as hundreds and thousands of others across the country.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: The other two retailers I interviewed the other day with uh over in Asheville, it was the same from them.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um they're both in the non- they're both in the bottle shop aspect, and it's such a significant piece that they're also afraid that if that does go through, they would be that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the things that's super interesting that you bring up is the black market piece.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to talk about from your end of things, you and I both have been advocates and participants in the marijuana industry for a long time.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's explain to the audience and any lawmakers that might be listening when you ban something but you don't enforce it, which there's no budget to enforce the ban.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one piece of the legislation part that's interesting.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's from the appropriations committee, there's no budget of enforcement.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just say the ban goes through.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk a little bit about how easy it is for all those, all the good people that are in it.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna not do it because it's gonna be banned by the government and they're gonna walk away and they're gonna say, I'm not gonna mess around, I'm not gonna risk this.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: But for a bad actor to not have an enforcement budget, that's a green light and a straight runway for success in that aspect.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then thus this health and human services detriment to the safety of the public.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh like I said, black when you talk about black market.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, prior to 10 years ago, people that's how people got their marijuana, you know.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't know the guy, you know, and and growing up in Vermont in the 80s, that's just the way it was.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, you knew people that grew and you would feel more comfortable purchasing things from them.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's all you know, it's illegal.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're buying stuff from the black market, and there's so much potential for tax revenue, you know, keeping it legal.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know the the thought process should be regulating, figure out the best way to regulate, figure out a good tax revenue stream from this, and everyone's happy.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um otherwise, it's just gonna be the Wild West again.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: People are just gonna be going to the street, they're gonna be doing deals in parking lots, and that's not good for anybody.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just you know, this marijuana, and I saw this great meme, and I've been seeing them on Instagram a lot.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, the marijuana leaves in handcuffs, and the cigarette, the pills, and the alcohol are all in their suits, you know, and they're all cool.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we're, you know, we're demonizing the the natural plant, but the poisons that are being pushed on people are perfectly fine, legal, you know.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying we need to make all that illegal.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: What I am saying is I see it as alcohol as a big lobbying group.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Pharmaceuticals definitely do.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of politicians that are in those back pockets, and they don't want to see something that's eating into their profits, so they're trying to kill it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it again is an enhancement because I don't these people that are that are quit alcohol, they're not just because THC's gone, they're not gonna go back to drinking again.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna figure out they're yeah, they're gonna figure something else out.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, human beings and human beings for the most part like to have a little buzz.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's just part of being alive.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: It opens you up, you know, it's that social aspect of you know, get the juices flowing.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're loosening up, and sometimes you have the most amazing conversations and meet the most amazing people that way.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: You're exactly right.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's talk about last question for you is um really on the entrepreneurial aspect of things.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: From from being an entrepreneur and starting everything for as long as you have, what was your perspective when you started seeing these beverages go?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, for me, it was a very it was the American dream.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was, you know, some people like to say the word loophole to throw that negative thing in, but I saw that there's opportunity within a framework that they ran with.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's uh I'm I am publicly here afraid, not afraid to say this.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's an un-American thing to like take that away.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like it just seems like it would be instantaneously like second nature to go, okay, they did this, it's worth billions of dollars, it's it's it's you know, it's employing hundreds of thousands of people.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just get some regulation and let this kind of thing grow and build a foundation to it.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that it's like kill it, suppress it, confuse it for a year, and then and then see what happens uh 12 months later just seems like the complete reversal of what we were raised in in this entrepreneurial world in the in the American dream.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh you hit the nail on the head.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Can't just put push something out there, people are getting used to it, and then rip it out from under them.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's where the backlash is gonna come.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and I hope everyone listening out there is going to be very vocal about this, especially uh, you know, it just it needs it, it can't just go away.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's uh, you know, some regulation that I've heard things like they're gonna limit it to 10 milligrams per, I don't know, gummy or or beverage or whatever.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: People are gonna just people that are used to drinking a 50 milligram are just gonna buy a four-pack and drink four of them.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's absolutely fine.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: But don't just pull it out from everyone.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um it is the American dream.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen this, we've seen it become, like I said, de less demonized over the last 20 years.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um guess it's federally it's been deregulated.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't believe when I saw those numbers that it was considered the class of the marijuana, marijuana was higher than fentanyl.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that that tells me a lot about where the money, you know, and the and the corporations that are you know funding, not funding, but you know, slipping politicians' money to keep things going.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, let's all step back and take a look and see how many people are actually addicted to marijuana.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: I I would say zero.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, it's a habit forming, yes, but it's not addictive.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we can be funny and say, and I always say this to people, if you're high, you're probably driving 10 miles an hour under the speed limit.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're you're more of a cautious driver.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not saying that that's acceptable and you shouldn't get super high and drive.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's it's just funny to think about it that way.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol is a lot more detrimental, it's ruining families, you know, with alcoholism and things like that.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're super high all the time, you may give your kids more Doritos than they should be eating, you know, that kind of thing.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some very distinct differences between marijuana and alcohol.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um as far as the American dream, the entrepreneurial thing.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of people have figured out how to make things.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen brands come and I've seen them go, uh, especially at the beginning.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, maybe the flavor profile wasn't there.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: People are also looking going back to the older demographic.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing a lot of people come in very concerned about calories, sugar content, um, and things like that.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when they find something, they're kind of they're on that brand, and that's what they want.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: It may be different with younger people that you know who who don't care, but we don't really carry anything that I know there's a lot of like soda, like THC sodas and things out there.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: We don't carry any of that just because that's not our it's not our people that come in here.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: They they're more conscious about the you know, they don't want to keep the calories and stuff, and that's one of the reasons why they stopped drinking too, is the caloric intake, you know, from just alcohol and beer and things like that.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so it's uh this is a different area than the rest of the country for sure, just because of the demographic that we're serving, uh, especially the year residents.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I can look at this place and kind of extrapolate through the rest of the country to figure out what's going on.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot more positive, a lot people are looking at this a lot more with positivity than you know, any kind of negativity.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I have never and since I've been selling this, I've never had somebody coming in and just you know give me crap for selling, oh, you're selling weed or blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, we're not.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's there's been a lot more positive than negative.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I actually haven't seen any any kind of negativity on this at all.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Tony, I want to thank you for coming on today.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh first off, first and foremost, the courage and the cojones, because I gave you no questions, I gave you no prep, and that we've never met before.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've never shared a beer together, had coffee together, anything like that.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the underlying formats of this show is to teach human connection and to show people that you can connect with a stranger and whether they grab tips from me or tips from you as they listen to these and watch these conversations, knowing that they're we literally go into these blind on camera, and we want people to understand that it is that easy to make a friend or to go out and go to a bar and socialize.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're not saying you need to go out and get hammered.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what we're saying.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're saying go out and socialize, whether it's a hemp beverage, whether it's a beer, whether it's a martini, whatever your drink of choice is, get out and meet your meet your community, meet your neighbors, and start activating those types of relationships and connections.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, as we're kind of closing out here, I want to remind everybody when you're walking on the street, put your phone in your pocket, look at the strangers while they're walking down the street.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: When you're at the gas station filling up your cup of coffee, look to the person next to you, ask them how they're doing, and shut your mouth and listen to what they say.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Engage with them and actually understand because I want to challenge everybody as I have for the past few weeks, five minutes of kindness every week to a stranger.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about ROIs on this show all the time.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: You give 20 minutes a month to strangers, you're gonna help somebody with their day, their week, their month, and God forbid they don't want to be on this earth anymore.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: You might give them hope in that human connection that they live on and thrive for another couple days and try to figure out or weeks or whatever it is to figure out where it is that they need to be in this in this world.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, Tony, it's a lot more than just drinks on this show.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope I appreciate you for again having that courage to come on.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I really appreciate hearing your story and and what's going on with with you guys down in North Carolina.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Nate.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it, and thanks for the opportunity to talk.