BILLERICA — The wait is over: recreational marijuana users finally have a dispensary right in town.
Collective Cannabis will open its doors at its locations in Billerica and Littleton on Saturday. Both shops are the first of their kind in their respective towns, and Collective is the first cannabis business in Massachusetts to open two locations in one day.
“We have a killer menu and we’re coming out with a bang,” said CEO David Giannetta, himself a Littleton resident who lives just a few minutes away from his store. “We’re looking to make a stance here.”
Collective Cannabis has been a long time coming. Giannetta began conversations with his two host towns in February 2019, and officially applied for licenses in May of that year.
The Billerica store was designed and built from the ground up by Giannetta, who has a background in construction and real estate, and the rest of his team. The location on Republic Road was previously a vacant lot, giving them free rein to create the facilities they wanted, as well as plenty of space for parking and loading.
“It’s been a labor of love,” Giannetta said. “It’s a dream, because we’re able to do something totally different from what we’ve done before.”
The shop is spacious with high ceilings, green walls and a neon mural of a cannabis plant, and includes display cases to show products and eight point-of-sale machines. Most of the decor was picked out by Giannetta’s wife, Stacie.
When they enter, customers will be greeted by employees and either pick up their order if it was placed ahead of time or meet with one of the “budtenders” behind the counter to decide which of the shop’s products is best for them.
“Our idea is to give people a place where they know what to expect,” Giannetta said. “A lot of people come in totally overwhelmed. We’re hoping to solve all that.”
Behind the scenes, the building has staff facilities as well as a large receiving room and vault to safely store products before they are sold.
The Littleton location is also spacious, but designed with a more “speakeasy” feel, because the shop floor is 4 feet below grade and customers walk in on a downward-sloping ramp.
Collective Cannabis will offer products from almost 20 suppliers both locally and around the country. Currently, they carry 47 different strains of marijuana and 44 different pre-rolled joints, as well as noncannabis products like pipes and vapes. Giannetta said the goal is to offer 260 different products.
The company’s name is inspired by that goal: Giannetta wants his stores to function as a collective, working together with suppliers to highlight and promote their products. Television screens around the shop will advertise available offerings from local companies, such as Sanctuary Medicinals right in Littleton, that customers can pick up at Collective’s counter, and display cases at the back of the room will showcase the packaging and products from those companies.
At the Littleton location, Collective has its own packaging room, where marijuana flower purchased from wholesalers will be repackaged with the company’s own branding.
“The idea is to bring in all the top suppliers so you don’t have to go anywhere else,” Giannetta said. “We’re not looking to be the only ones, but showcase the suppliers. I think they appreciate that.”
That philosophy applies to operations in-house as well. Of Collective’s nearly 70 employees between the two stores, many, like Giannetta, are local. The CEO said he considers them an extended part of his family.
“Everybody that’s come to work with us, I can tell they’re excited to be part of something that’s ground-up,” he said.
He added that he was excited to see the impact the company can make on local residents.
“I want to be able to do something that allows me to help people as much as I can,” he said. “When you sell real estate or build houses, you help a couple people, but this is a huge undertaking.”
Collective Cannabis will open to the public at 4 p.m. Saturday at 4 Republic Road, Billerica, and 537 Great Road, Littleton. A VIP grand opening will be held on March 11.
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