Canna-Chico 2025: Checking in with the city’s three local cannabis dispensaries

By Ken Magri

In August of 2020, Chico’s city council voted 5-2 to allow cannabis dispensaries in the city after an ad hoc committee worked for two years to craft an acceptable ordinance.

Four licenses were approved for retail storefronts within the city limits, provided these new businesses were located away from downtown and maintained a reasonable distance from schools.

Since December of 2022, three of those licenses have been awarded to three different dispensary chains named Sweet Flower, Embarc and Oregrown. Each chain partnered with local owners who joined their group of dispensaries. By sharing cannabis brands, business expenses and marketing practices, it keeps their overheads lower.

A commitment to community and investing in the city itself is a common business philosophy that links these three chains together. Choosing local contractors to design their stores, hiring local employees and offering locally-grown cannabis products keeps Chico money in Chico.

By collecting over $1.5 million from the city’s imposed 5% cannabis sales tax, called a “community benefit assessment,” Chico has benefited from legalizing retail cannabis. In addition, dispensaries give back to the community by donating a percentage of their revenues to local non-profit organizations while encouraging employees to do volunteer work.

Since each dispensary has been in operation for at least a full calendar year, the News & Review decided it was time to reach out and get an idea of how things are going.

Sweet Flower Dispensary

Sweet Flower on Alcott Avenue takes great pride in its designation as Chico’s first and highest rated cannabis dispensary. Opening in December of 2022, it is part of the Sweet Flower chain headquartered in Culver City, with six more locations in Sacramento, Fresno and Southern California.

The store is co-owned by Chico native Coleen Winter, who also owns Lulu’s Fashion Outlet, and Tim Dodd, the Southern California entrepreneur who began Sweet Flower.

But without a chance encounter, this dispensary would have never happened.

In 2020, Winter opened a Lulu’s pop-up boutique in Los Angeles, across from a Sweet Flower store. Out of nowhere, she contacted Dodd and asked him to build dispensary with her up in Chico.

 “She said ‘my team kept going into your store and telling me how wonderful it was.’” Dodd told the News & Review. “I was in Chico the next day. We were sitting in Meriam Park and there’s nothing there but an empty field.” But after Winter described the coming Meriam Park mixed-use development, Dodd told her, “I’m all in.”

Sweet Flower’s interior is bright and sunny with large showcase windows, wall graphics and blonde-wood cabinetry created by local artisans. Its austere design combines light hues and indoor plants in a calm environment that beautifully showcases the products.

Included in its menu of statewide and local offerings are BIPOC brands (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) like Cookies, Seed Junky and El Blunto. Sweet Flower also features its own in-house brand of cannabis flower, vape cartridges and pre-rolls.

The menu carries a large inventory of edibles, including a non-alcoholic sparkling beverage from Pabst Blue Ribbon with 10 milligrams of THC.

But what this dispensary is most proud of are its contributions to the local economy. In addition to the million dollars Sweet Flower has collected in taxes for the community benefit assessment, it created an advisory board to donate $100,000 to the Chico Housing and Action Team, Safe Space Chico, the Chico Housing Improvement Plan, the Butte County local Food Network, Catalyst Domestic Violence Services, Friends of Butte Creek and the Museum of Northern California Art.

Before its official opening, Sweet Flower gathered over one hundred local leaders, including council members, county supervisors, legacy growers, community advocates and philanthropic leaders, to learn about their new retail operation.

I love Chico,” said Dodd. “We’ve had no incidents, no complaints. I hope the city is happy with what we’re doing.”

Embarc Dispensary

The Embarc Dispensary on Cohasset Road is owned by Sacramento residents Lauren Carpenter, Kevin Schmidt and Dustin Moore.

Carpenter previously worked at the Mad Men and Sweet Flower dispensaries in Los Angeles, learning the business before taking a chance in 2020 with her own store in South Lake Tahoe. Since then, Embarc has grown to 16 locations throughout the Central Valley and Southern California.

Kevin Schmidt comes to Embarc from state government. In 2011, they were the Policy Director for Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom. Dustin Moore was the former campaign manager for California’s Proposition 64, which legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2016.

“In Chico, we partnered with Carrie Welch, who is on that license as an owner of the business as well,” said Devon Wardlow, Embarc’s Vice President of Public Affairs. Welch is a Chico real estate professional with 20 years of experience who found the Cohasset Road location for Embarc.

Local sourcing of products is a big priority at this dispensary.  “We have an entire team that is dedicated to getting local products on our shelves,” said Wardlow. The Chico’s Best brand, which offers flower, vape cartridges, pre-rolls and concentrates, was mentioned by Embarc’s Josh Lewis as one of the store’s best sellers.

Wardlow used the term “democratized shelf space” in describing Embarc’s inclusion of local and BIPOC cannabis brands. “One of the things about cannabis is that we want to make sure we are uplifting those mom and pop brands. It’s one of the reasons why we, as a company, are not vertically integrated [selling an in-house brand].”

Embarc also has a 1% give-back charitable program, and uses an advisory board that meets quarterly to make those donation decisions. In mentioning support for youth drug prevention and athletics, the unhoused and economic development organizations, Wardlow was hesitant to name specific recipients, saying that some prefer to remain unacknowledged.

“From our perspective, the City of Chico is one of the best examples of how to implement retail cannabis,” said Wardlow, who added that the license process was transparent and merit-based, and that the police department is a great partner in helping to create a positive environment around the industry.

Oregrown Dispensary

Chico’s Oregrown is co-owned by Marc Breckinridge, a 24 year Chico resident, and Aaron Elston. It is the only California dispensary in a chain of four that has sister stores in Portland, Cannon Beach and Bend, Oregon.

By its name, one might expect this store to specialize in products from Oregon.

But crossing a state border with cannabis is a federal crime because the US Drug Enforcement Agency still defines cannabis as a Schedule One drug with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Chico’s Oregrown menu features only California products. They include statewide brands Stiiizy, Heavy Hitters, Absolute Extracts and 710 Labs. The menu also offers local brands like West Coast Treez from Grass Valley and small-batch family brands like Shasta Flower and Hash Company. It also carries the C4 brand, a Chico cannabis business operated by disabled combat veterans.

Oregrown is committed to inclusion, proper environmental practices and sustainable packaging. It is proud of its partnerships with ethical manufacturers and also gives back to the community through donations.

“Over the past year, we’ve proudly partnered with the Boys and Girls Clubs of the North Valley, CHAT, Butte Environmental Council, Stonewall Alliance Center of Chico, Butte Humane Society, and the Salvation Army,” said Breckenridge.

With early and late store hours, and its Park Avenue location, which is the closest to downtown, this outlet can be a convenient choice for residents on their way to or from downtown shopping.

To address customer concerns about the layered tax costs, Oregrown created a “Tax-Free Tuesday,” where the dispensary discounts all prices to match what the total state, local and sales tax would have been. The Oregrown website explains how a $93 pre-tax purchase would remain at $93 simply by discounting the price of the products (instead of actually forgoing taxes). It would save customers 31% on the purchase.

If using the Oregrown website to order early, remember to designate the Chico store, which will have a different menu of products than the Oregon outlets.

Competition from the illicit market

Finally, the News & Review asked about competition in Chico from the illicit cannabis market, which produced a pair of interesting answers.

Devon Wardlow did not want to get specific about the Chico market in particular, saying that California law enforcement works very hard to combat unregulated sellers. She also made the point that more cities in California are licensing cannabis dispensaries “because the biggest way to combat the illegal market is to have a legal market.”

But Tim Dodd from Sweet Flower was more direct, saying there was a major “cultural” difference between Southern and Northern California and Chico does not have an illicit market problem.

“The illicit market in Northern California comes from, I believe, an advocacy for the plant and the sense of community around that,” said Dodd. He described Northern California’s illicit growers as “traditional” which sometimes include “multi-generational families.”

“The culture down here in Southern California is very different, more profit-driven and there’s quite a lot of organized crime around it,” said Dodd. “I don’t see that happening in Chico.”