Paul Szmal: Daryl Hilkert is here from High Points Dispensary. He is our correspondent for all things cannabis related. Good morning sir, how are you?
Daryl Hilkert: Hey Paul, how are we doing today?
Paul Szmal: Good, good. Major holiday coming up and I say this tongue slightly in cheek but this is like Christmas day for places like yours.
Daryl Hilkert: Oh yeah, it's a national holiday and now 4-20 April 20th is known as the National Smoke Time, created years and years ago, actually from the early 1970s. So it's been a thing for a long time and became National Smoke Day in the early 1990s and here we are today, biggest shopping day of the year for cannabis, one of them of course. As time goes on, there's more and more holidays evolving around the cannabis industry.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, some people thought that 4-20 originated as a police code for a pot bust. Some people thought it was from Bob Dylan's Rainy Day Women 12 and 35 because if you multiply 35 times 12 you get 4-20. But the story you're telling is actually now what is accepted as the origins. It was a group of kids called the Waldos from San Rafael High School in California, who would rendezvous at that time every day. They'd have a joint and then they'd go looking for a marijuana field.
Daryl Hilkert: Correct.
Paul Szmal: And they never found it.
Daryl Hilkert: No, of course, but they're probably wandering around quite a bit.
Paul Szmal: I imagine so. But flash forward to the present day now and your celebration of this is actually going to stretch over a few days.
Daryl Hilkert: Yeah, a lot of times it falls on the weekend so we would do our parking lot party and have music and vendors and all that stuff outside. But this year, since it's landing on a Monday, we figured we'd make a weekend event about it. The weather up here on Beans Hill is not always the greatest in April. Last year we experienced some high winds taking out some tents and making it not so nice outside. So we're bringing it inside and we're going to do a four-day event. We're going to start on Friday and we'll just have a couple of vendors each day from different brands representing their products. They'll have specials and giveaways and whatnot, whatever they choose to do. We'll be having deals every day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. So come on out. Enjoy talking to the vendors and get your discounts and giveaways and all that good stuff.
Paul Szmal: So this is the biggest shopping weekend, like I said, one of them of the year. So get your deals, stock up, great time to come out and try some new products, you know, get some discounts, package deals and stuff like that. Yeah, now I mean if you want to find out more about some of these products that are sold at your location, the vendors that are going to be there are some of the vendors that have products in your store.
Daryl Hilkert: Yeah, they represent the brand. So like I said, we'll have two to four vendors every day, all four days. So and they can explain their products and, you know, how they process them or grow them and all that good stuff.
Paul Szmal: Right, and keep in mind now that licensed dispensaries process different procedures. So yeah, all good, clean, safe products. Everything's tested, pre-packaged, sealed, all that good stuff before it comes to us. And a lot of new stuff evolving, even we've been there a little over two years now and still new products are coming along. So always something new in the store. The knowledgeable staff will definitely point you in the right direction. If you have any questions, we're geared up and ready. We're fully stocked. We're ready for a good turnout for the weekend. It seems like the product evolution for this stuff moves as fast as technology does nowadays. What was considered to be new and innovative when you first opened has now, you know, maybe been, I don't want to say supplanted, but there's stuff that has evolved two or three times over from that original that's sitting there and, you know, sitting there on the shelf next to the original product.
Daryl Hilkert: Oh yeah, and you know, the growers keep getting better. The flower that's out there now is nothing like it was when we were younger. You know, this is all professionally grown, processed, so it's all high quality, good products.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of data that goes into this stuff now that wasn't available before. It was, you know, you put a plant in the ground and you hope it lives.
Daryl Hilkert: Yeah, yeah, back in the day, you know, you could do your own extraction and make your own butters and stuff and then use that to make your edibles.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, but you never knew exactly how much you were consuming or if there was any bad products in the flower before you even extracted it yourself.
Daryl Hilkert: Yeah, you know, there could be molds and mildews and all kinds of stuff that can get you sick actually. And now these products are just, you know, so different in the way that they're made and because of the science involved, you know, the dosages are a lot more precise so you know what you're taking, whether you're taking something with THC or without THC, and you have a variety of stuff to choose from that you didn't have before. We didn't have the the drinks before. We didn't have the tinctures before. We didn't have the gummies before. Now we've got all these different ways and different things so there's really a whole world out there to explore and doing it during this four-day period, probably one of the best times of the year to do it.
Paul Szmal: Oh, absolutely.
Daryl Hilkert: You're going to get the best prices. Like I said, the staff is ready. We're ready for a good time. We're still doing our free lunch Friday so we'll have pizza there from Salvatore's Friday. Come in, get your deals, get your pizza, and all week on long just stop in, check the store out. If you haven't been in, you really need to come in and check it out. That's on 5 and 20 in Geneva right across the way from VisionWorks in the front of that plaza, the old Thompson Plaza there.
Paul Szmal: So best of success this weekend, man. Thanks for stopping in as always. Appreciate you having us.
