As legal cannabis shifts from counterculture to common culture, dispensaries are also evolving. They’ve typically operated like a pharmacy—you wait on line at a counter, ask a question or two, pick your products, then head out. And this system works for many. But as awareness grows about the multifaceted uses of the plant—whether for medicine, pleasure, or general wellness—there are communal bonds being built between consumers and dispensers not often seen with traditional pharmacies, with reasons to gather beyond the original purpose, like live music, discussion groups, or joint-rolling workshops.
Sweetgrass Botanicals in Lee, Massachusetts took the concept of a dispensary that doubles as a community center, and went running with it. “We bought a crazy, rambling 6,000-square-foot building overlooking a lake that serves as a dispensary, mercantile, lounge, and manufacturing location, with an in-house hash lab and commercial kitchen,” explains owner Cassandra Purdy.
Open since early February, Sweetgrass set roots in what was formerly the Cork ’N Hearth, a landmark Berkshires restaurant run by a husband-wife team for 27 years, and a tavern or restaurant of some iteration since 1874. “It was where everyone went for any occasion, with copper kettles on the wall and a
