Vendor’s reefer sadness
`Kevin Reed launched his medical marijuana business two years ago, armed with big dreams and an Excel spreadsheet.
Happy customers at his Green Cross cannabis club were greeted by “bud tenders” and glass jars brimming with high-quality weed at red-tag prices. They hailed the slender, gentle Southerner as a ganja good Samaritan. Though Reed set out to run it like a Walgreens, his tiny storefront shop ended up buzzing with jazzy joie de vivre. Turnover was Starbucks-style: On a good day, $30,000 in business would walk through the black, steel-gated front door.
Today, the 32-year-old cannabis capitalist is looking for a job, his business undone by its own success and unexpected opposition in one of America’s most proudly tolerant places. [..]’