Black Friday 2019 is looking good for retailers. Yahoo Finance reports early data showing online sales up a whopping 19% over last year .
But the purveyors of apparel, appliances, furniture, and consumer electronics aren’t the only ones profiting from the sales blitz.
Legal marijuana dispensaries across the United States and Canada are attracting customers with Black Friday deals. It’s a sign that the growing legal marijuana industry continues to become a normal part of American life.
Of course many are calling it the “Green Friday” sale.
A manager at Green Heart Dispensary in Aurora, Colorado said there was an uptick in store traffic the morning of Black Friday.
The store was so busy at the time, he didn’t have time to chat. He actually had to jump off the phone in a hurry to help with the store’s customers.
The 35% off everything in the store from cannabis edibles, to flowers, to vape cartridges might have something to do with it. That’s a lot of savings off the dispensary’s typical weekly discounts of 10% on different products.
At Kush Alley in Los Angeles, California, a representative said it was “definitely” busier on Black Friday just 35 minutes after the store had opened.
She said:
That might also be because we were closed yesterday for Thanksgiving. So people might have been low on supplies.
But the 50% off Black Friday Special for Kush Alley on cannabis coupon website LeafBuyer is a nice incentive.
A representative at Mayflower Medicinals in Boston, Massachusetts didn’t comment on the store’s traffic today. But the company is offering a 50% “Black Green Friday” discount for pre-rolled medical marijuana joints.
It’s already been a big week for marijuana dispensary sales.
The legal cannabis industry has made “Weed Wednesday” a yearly tradition ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Last year, sales from recreational stores in CA, CO, NV, and WA saw a 63% increase over a typical Wednesday. That netted an extra $7 million in revenue for the stores in these states.
Apparently Thanksgiving is an opportune day to have the munchies.
The world’s largest marijuana dispensary , Planet 13 in Las Vegas, has a guide on cannabis strains to pair with each course of the Thanksgiving feast .
The holiday shopping rush caps off a major year of growth for legal marijuana. Earlier this year Colorado state revenues from its recreational pot business topped $1 billion , or 3% of the state’s budget.
Data analytics provider Nielsen projects legal cannabis sales to grow from $8 billion last year to $41 billion by 2025 .
The Reno Police Department warned this week that legal marijuana isn’t all fun and profit. The department’s Twitter account asked followers to “please spread the word” that driving while impaired is unsafe .