By Jonah Raskin —
Finally, after years of delays, dickering, and waiting, the SPARC dispensary in Sonoma on Highway 12 will open on, what else, 4/20. For medical marijuana patients, heads, and aficionados of the herb that’s often thought of as sacred, it will feel like Christmas in April.
Michael Coats, the president of the Sonoma Valley Cannabis Enthusiasts (SVCA), a lobbyIng group and fraternal organization, said, “we are thrilled to finally have a storefront dispensary opening in the Valley. It’s been a long time coming!”
Erich Pearson, SPARC’s founder and CEO, is the person most responsible for the long overdue dispensary. Call him a cannabis Santa Claus. He has shown more patience and jumped through more hoops than one would think humanly possible, though he has had ample help, along the way, he says, from county supervisors, some more enthusiastic than others. Typically, Pearson hopes they’ll all be on board with cannabis.
The SPARC dispensary will mean that citizens in the town of Sonoma and the surrounding Valley will no longer have to make the drive to Cotati and Santa Rosa to purchase cannabis products, including gummies, “pre-rolled joints,” as they’re called, and aromatic buds ready to be smoked in a pipe, a bong or another delivery system.
Locals have been making that journey for years and have grown to hate it, or to accept it reluctantly.
The grand opening is scheduled for April 20, a day that’s known in the cannabis world as 4/20, an unofficial holiday that has been celebrated by stoners for decades. Still, that date isn’t carved in stone. “There are still many moving parts,” Pearson says.
The main reason it has taken so long for the SPARC Sonoma dispensary to open is the red tape in Sacramento and Santa Rosa, the county seat. All across California, similar bottlenecks have prevented dispensaries from opening their doors. “Even before they open they’re in the hole for hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Pearson says.
Backgrounder: the history of cannabis in Sonoma
Most of the cannabis available for purchase at the SPARC dispensary on Highway 12 will be cultivated at Pearson’s farm in Glen Ellen. It has been in operation for several years and has produced buds of the highest quality.
Pearson says that the new dispensary will operate like a grocery store. “Shoppers will be able to grab a basket, fill it with the products they want, and check out. We have used this procedure in our other dispensaries and have found that customers like it. They don’t feel rushed.” SPARC will also deliver cannabis.
There are two items I hope that the dispensary carries. One of them is a new cookbook titled The Art of Cooking with Cannabis by Vermont author Tracy Medeiros. The information about cannabis is crystal clear and the 125 recipes are mouth watering. It’s the best cooking with cannabis book in print. Indeed, what works for Vermonters and New Englanders should work well for Californians, even for veteran cannabis cooks.
The other items I look forward to at the dispensary are the tablets or pills from Protab that are about the same size as low dose aspirin. I’ve tried three of Protab’s products, one that’s meant to boost energy, another to provide relief from pain, and the last for maximum relaxation and sleep. For the best results, they can be broken in half and in quarters.
Chris Emerson, Protab’s founder and CEO, has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford and knows how to mix and match THC with CBD and more. He served in the navy from 1993 to 1997 so he also knows about stress and how to reduce it. “We use precise amounts of cannabinoids for targeted effects,” he told me.
He suggests that users “Start low and go slow.” Pearson adheres to the same philosophy. He expects that many of the customers at his dispensary will be tourists who ought not to binge or go wild, though they’ll be on holiday in Sonoma.
What he’d like for Christmas this April, perhaps more than anything else, is a reduction in the county taxes on the cultivation of cannabis. Humboldt County has lowered taxes and thereby helped an industry that’s still finding its way.
“Taxes on cannabis are way too high and there are too many of them,” Pearson says. He’s right about that. Still, he’s looking forward to the grand opening of his dispensary, meeting customers, and getting to know them and their preferences in the ever-expanding world of marijuana
Jonah Raskin is the author of Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War.
I am a member of the LGBT community. I understand issues that underprivileged my have time opening businesses like these. I have followed this story for years and at first rooted for Eric Peirson because he is a homosexual. But I found out from following this that some of the path that lead to his selection by the city of Sonoma was shady to say the least. I came to find out from some professionals around him some of the unethical and shady practices he uses to achieve his goals. I think he gives LGBT community a bad name. He apparently was involved in back room dealings to secure his selection that involved his staff involved in deals with Rachael hundley’s husband who was acting as a lobbyist and gatekeeper to the ex-council members vote. I am told by multiple sources that this shady dealing is why Hundley needed to step down from the Sonoma city counsel after recusing herself from the vote that ensured Eric peirsons selection. At first the counsel repealed their selection of sparc after this conflict and flagrant pay to play accusation was brought to the attention of the press and other counsel members. He should have been disqualified in my opinion but they ratified his selection n the dust that settled as hundley was disgraced and removed after an ethics inquiries from a state body it’s not fair to the other operators. Was he given favorable treatment because he is a outwardly gay man who donates to gay causes and promotes LGBT at the core of his model? That’s wrong. I don’t think being gay should give him any advantages but apparently it does. It was a clear ethics violation that landed him his selection. I am LGBT but I am against using it as a tool to get favorable treatment. And I am against using donations to LGBT causes because I think that families should be the ones who talk about these topics and not some pot broker who uses his sexual preference as a business tool. No one questions his ethics violations involved in his aggressive and shady dealings. He gets a pass because he is gay. That is not good for the rest of us in the gay community because people see this double standard and favoritism and blame all LGBT not just unethical bullies like peirson. There are a lot of dispensaries opening in the area. The selection of peirson was shady and protecting his monopoly in the city is wrong for any reason. Ask Amy Harrington who used to be the mayor of Sonoma about peirson and sparc unethical dealings to steal the selection. Amy Harrington was there and knows what happened. I assume agramonte knows too. And the city lawyer definitely know. It’s why hundleys political career ended in disgrace. Look it up. I am gay bu I am against bullies and cheats whether they are gay or not. I will spend my money elsewhere. I hope the city looks into the unethical way peirson achieves his goals for his well-funded business. Also, I think it’s cliche to donate to gay causes. It’s a ploy. It he really cared and it wasn’t about business he would make his philanthropies confidentially. I’ve been to sparc in Santa Rosa and they have terrible house brands and limited selection of brands I want. Apparently you cannot cheat at growing good weed. I will spend my money elsewhere.
People are people and sexuality has zero to do with personality or representation. I’m bi [talk about being discriminated on by both the gay/lesbian and straight community!!!!] so don’t need the lecture about how it is.
IF he had ‘dirty dealings’ then that is a separate issue and [at least in many of our minds] nothing to do with his sexual preferences, but more about the person only, so, let’s concentrate on that.
“The main reason it has taken so long for the SPARC Sonoma dispensary to open is the red tape in Sacramento and Santa Rosa, the county seat.”
Mr. Raskin knows full well that neither Sacramento nor Santa Rosa have been to blame for the lack of a dispensary in Sonoma. Anyone paying attention knows the fault lies with the Sonoma City Council. Ken Brown and I apprised Mr Raskin of this when we met with him some time ago. How quickly, and conveniently, we forget.