SFGATE

Solful plays by their own rules. This Bay Area pot shop chain only sells outdoor cannabis. They don't care about THC percentage. They pay their farmers $1,000/pound, far more than average. And they're profitable. I'm really excited to write probably my first positive story about cannabis retail in California. It's been nonstop doom and gloom, but some people are finding ways to make it legally work in California. Maybe everyone can learn something by looking at the trail Eli Melrod and Solful are blazing. https://lnkd.in/gu6ReG-K

California's biggest pot companies are falling like dominoes: MedMen, Herbl, FlowKana, Statehouse, and now... Eaze. California's largest delivery service is shutting down, with Eaze laying off 500 workers and ceasing operations by the end of the year. Jim Araby told me it should be considered yet another "warning sign" for California's lawmakers of the “continuing dysfunction” inside the state's legal cannabis market. “This closure and the fact that almost 500 union jobs are going to be lost in the cannabis industry should be a wake up call to the state legislators and the government that more action needs to be taken,” Araby said. https://lnkd.in/gGbQW3Ci

Newsom loves his veto pen so this one surprised me! Cannabis cafes are now on their way to California. Most pot shops won't have lounges. And most lounges won't spend the money to serve food. But the few businesses that explore this area of cannabis hospitality could blaze a trail for an entirely new type of cannabis culture in America... https://lnkd.in/gadYqnwz

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had a tough announcement for his company’s remote work enthusiasts on Monday: The tech and logistics giant is bringing its staff back into the office five days a week. https://lnkd.in/g5xc8Hid

This is hard for me to write... I have good friends who have invested their entire businesses into producing amazing cannabis vapes. I believe that it is possible to produce clean vape carts. And I've spent years writing about how vaping can be a great product category. But I won't hit a vape anymore, and I recommend all of my family and friends stay away as well. There's simply too many risks associated with dirty vape carts, from heavy metal leeching into the oil to mystery pesticides that the state has no idea how to regulate. No one has studied the risks of vaping carts every day for years of decades. Do you want to be the guinea pig for an entire new product category? I don't. https://lnkd.in/gikKckUf

Newsom fires the latest shot fired in California's war over hemp: https://lnkd.in/gwPGDJ4w

Oh HEY. 👋 According to the NYT, local news is not dying in SF. As the EIC at SFGATE — SF's most visited media site (and the largest free outlet on the ENTIRE West Coast) — just wanted to say it's true, plus update you on how "not dying" (https://lnkd.in/gpD6wM2b) we are 👇 It’s been 5yrs since SFGATE & San Francisco Chronicle became two separate entities w/ our own independent newsrooms. Since then SFGATE has created 34 new #journalismjobs, more than doubling the size of our staff. In 2022, we got our very own newsroom 😊 The investments we've made have been local — we hired SF's first dumpling columnist, its most diehard Giants fan and coolest East Bay resident — but also statewide. We now have journalists living in 21 different cities across the state. Lots of them are doing deep feature journalism in media deserts, while others are covering huge swaths of CA (The entire Central Coast! All of our national parks!) that normally only see formulaic travel coverage from national outlets parachuting in: https://lnkd.in/g27zApiy We also hired a full-time cannabis editor (Lester Black) to cover the state's pot economy and our first CA editor (Tessa McLean) to cover things like what comes next for CA's malls and the death of the state's historic piers: https://lnkd.in/gBa6Mmiw Plus we launched an entire SoCal Bureau featuring the country's best journalist writing about Disney (Julie Tremaine) and — just this February — added four tremendously talented LA journalists (Farley Elliott Paula Mejía Karen Palmer Erin Rode). We also started covering Hawaii earnestly (thanks to the incomparable Christine Hitt) and RIGHT NOW are in the process of hiring a North Coast editor to write about everything between the Bay Area and the CA-Oregon border. During that ENTIRE 5-year span of editorial independence here SFGATE, we haven't had a single layoff. Zero. So yes, we're 'not dying' in SF, but we've also been quietly growing local news coverage in cities across CA. And, as of today, they seem very much alive as well.

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Last year, I bought a cannabis vape pen in San Francisco that sent me down a rabbit hole with a startling conclusion: Banned pesticides keep showing up in California’s legal weed products, the state government appears to be unable to do much about it, and, most startling, the DCC is currently unable to test for pesticide contamination in some pot products, leaving questions about how, exactly, they’re investigating allegations of contamination.

Thank you SFGATE for the thoughtful feature. We're excited to bring a fresh take on meaningful travel experiences to Lake Tahoe.