The selection of recreational marijuana in Southwest Washington grows wider this weekend with the opening of Vancouver’s sixth pot shop, GreenHead Cannabis.
GreenHead opens its doors for the first time at 10 a.m. today along a busy stretch of St Johns Boulevard in the Rose Village neighborhood, just north of Clark College. After several months spent extensively remodeling the 78-year-old building at 2815 St. Johns Blvd. that now houses the store, GreenHead is unlike any other pot shop in the city.
Inside the bones of what used to be a rundown gas station, GreenHead has a modern industrial feel with sleek gray walls, dark floors and exposed brick and wood. High on the wall next to the front counter are two ducks shot by one of the owners, and just around the corner you’ll find a fake fireplace beneath a mantel lined with antique pharmacy equipment.
The design is both an homage the owners’ history and a celebration of the end of a long-standing statewide prohibition on marijuana, said Amy Graeff, GreenHead’s managing director. Graeff and her family own the business.
“We are hunters and fishermen, and I have a degree in architecture,” she said. “Some of the inspiration came from my father, who is a pharmacist. We owned a gift store and pharmacy for 39 years in Vancouver.”
Just off to the side of the front counter, the store features a special little room with a sliding wooden window. Graeff refers to it as the speakeasy. Essentially, it’s a space where customers holding special GreenHead member cards can go to bypass the line at the front counter.
The store’s name is a reference to marijuana, of course, but the term “green head” comes from a nickname for mallards, referring to their colors.
“We want to really embrace our family and our roots with the brand,” Graeff said.
It’s been a long journey to this point, she said. The family set out about a year ago planning to open a boutique marijuana store in their hometown.
“I spent close to a year traveling throughout Washington state to find sustainable farms that grew really good pot and building a relationship with the farms,” Graeff said. “That’s why we are one of the last people (to open).”
Before coming home, Graeff also used to own a bar in Seattle, and years ago, she learned how to make craft cocktails at Saucebox in Portland. Graeff plans to put her bartending experience in the store to use, showing customers how to mix marijuana extracts with coffee and other drinks.
The store carries a limited selection of cannabis strains from only a handful of growers: Vashon Velvet, CannaSol Farms and Earth Rising Farm. For now, GreenHead doesn’t carry any locally grown products, but Graeff plans to expand on her selection in the coming months.
For now, the prices on flower range from $15 to $30 per gram.
Aside from flower, GreenHead carries edibles and extracts from several companies, including Zoots and Craft Elixirs.
“We’re a boutique,” Graeff said. “We want it all over the board: middle shelf, top shelf, all of that. We want to make sure that everybody is happy.”
GreenHead is the seventh recreational marijuana store in Clark County. It’s also the last of the stores allotted for Vancouver in the retail license lottery held last spring. The door will soon open for more stores in Clark County as the state brings the medical side under the umbrella of its regulatory system for recreational marijuana.
