Petaluma’s first cannabis business makes CBD drinks – Petaluma Argus Courier

While he was driving home to Sepastopol in late 2016, businessman and entrepreneur Alex Mountjoy listened to a story on the radio about cannabis legalization and had what he calls a “revelation.”

At the time, he was stressed and overworked, looking for an alternative to alcohol that would soothe his anxiety while he sprinted to finish redesigning his body care product company’s website in time for the holiday shopping rush.

After trying a few cannabis products from a local dispensary, Mountjoy found their effects helped him calm down and increased his energy. The experience also catalyzed an idea for a new business venture that would eventually land him in Petaluma, opening the cannabis manufacturer Occidental Power Company and hemp extract-infused sparkling water company Mountjoy Sparkling in 2018.

“It’s always been a product that resonated with my personal needs and what I’m passionate about,” Mountjoy said of cannabis. “Luckily, it resonates with other people as well.”

Attached to the ritual of sipping on a beverage, Mountjoy zeroed in on sparkling waters as his intended cannabis product line, and soon got to work testing out the idea.

“It started in our barn on our property in Sebastopol,” Mountjoy said. “We had a bottling machine set up in our 16 by 16 barn, using water from our well. It was a slow process at the start.”

Once he secured a permit from the city of Petaluma and moved into the business’ headquarters along North McDowell Boulevard next to Lagunitas, the operation skyrocketed. Mountjoy and his small team of employees went from producing one pallet a week in the Sepastopol barn to eight pallets a day, expanding from roughly 1,400 bottles to more than 55,000.

Mountjoy Sparkling waters contain about 10 milligrams of CBD, or cannabidoil, per 16-ounce bottle. The element of the hemp plant is marketed as non-psychoactive and therapeutic, and has recently seen an explosion in popularity and uses, inserted into everything from food and beverages to dog food and makeup.

CBD stores, which sell products containing the cannabidoil element of the hemp and marijuana plant, are legal in the city. Purchasing CBD itself is legal, but most CBD products are not FDA-approved, and manufacturers and sellers are largely unable to make claims about their efficacy. Research has also been inconclusive about the effects of CBD on the body, although many studies are still in their infancy.

The Petaluma-based company is also launching a line of non-alcoholic beverages in the next month containing the trendy extract, acting as a faux alcohol product meant to mimic the taste and smell of gin, whiskey and tequila. The product names play on their alcoholic counterparts, Yer Hiskwey referencing rye whiskey, Ing a jumbled version of gin, and Quileta based on tequila.

Mountjoy said customers will be able to choose between Yer Hiskwey products that contain either CBD or the psychoactive element THC.

“I hear that millennials are drinking less alcohol and looking at alternatives, there’s the sober bar movement, and this line feeds into this,” Mountjoy said. “Our products are really popular with people trying to drink less or don’t drink at all.”

Although dispensary storefronts and large-scale cultivation is banned in Petaluma, the city does allow cannabis product manufacturing businesses within specific industrial zone and up to two delivery service businesses. Mountjoy holds the only cannabis manufacturing permit in the city of Petaluma, emblematic of the city’s conservative and strict grip on the local cannabis industry.

The only dispensary in the Petaluma region is Down Under Industries opened December 2019, situated along Ely Road just outside city limits. One of the two available permits for a cannabis delivery service has been issued, to Farmhouse Artisan Market.

Economic Development Manager Ingrid Alverde said the city found only Farmhouse Artisan Marker met the city’s requirements when looking for applicable businesses, and hasn’t yet received further direction from council to re-open the process for a second business to take the remaining permit.

“Our thinking is that we just haven’t prioritized revisiting the policy, although there has been some indications from council that we may want to look at new opportunities,” Alverde said.

(Contact Kathryn Palmer at kathryn.palmer@arguscourier.com, on Twitter @KathrynPlmr.)

Dodaj komentarz