Despite shortages, sales continue to be brisk at Vancouver’s two retail marijuana stores: Main Street Marijuana and New Vansterdam.

Main Street Marijuana released sales figures to The Columbian for marijuana products purchased from its opening on June 9 to today (June 21) at about 3 p.m.

For that time period, the store had $238,135.39 worth of sales, despite periodic shutdowns due to lack of product.

Taxes from those sales to the good people of Washington? That would be $35,887.81 so far.

Ramsey Hamide, a manager, said the store has seen a steady stream of customers since the grand opening.

Main Street has been building relationships with growers and is expecting about 70 pounds worth of product to arrive from two growers by next weekend, he said.

“Sales continue to be incredibly brisk,” Hamide said. “We’re working constantly to get new processors and producers on our shelves.”

With the large shipments later this week, Main Street Marijuana hopes to stay open longer than the reduced 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. hours it has had so far.

“As soon as next Monday even we may be able to go to our expanded hours of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week,” Hamide said. “Although obviously it’s hard to tell for sure with growers and supply issues.”

Main Street also saw a host of new customers on Saturday during the annual Cruisin’ the Gut car event downtown, he said.

“Saturday was crazy,” Hamide said. “We had a lot of people in the 45 to 65 age demographic come in, a lot of people who hadn’t used the product in 20 years and wanted to give it a try again.”

Main Street expected a shipment of 3.5 pounds from Verdavante on Monday before 5 p.m., a shipment of pre-rolled joints from Blewett Pass Farms on Tuesday or Wednesday and then some bigger shipments on Thursday and Friday.

New Vansterdam, which has also seen brisk sales since it opened, should be able to stay open all week, said Don Joling, a manager.

Brian Budz, one of the owners, declined to release sales figures publicly but said the demand is constant and things are going well.

New Vansterdam on Monday had two strains from CannaSol available and is expecting to get some pre-rolled joints from Blewett Pass Farms on Tuesday or Wednesday, along with other shipments throughout the week.

On Wednesday, New Vansterdam is expecting a shipment from Monkey Grass Farms, but that grower is near wildfire country so there could be some delays, Joling said.

“For (growers in those wildfire areas), it takes a while to get product together, and then it has to go into quarantine,” Joling said. “From there the route they were taking to deliver it to us has changed because of the fires and it takes longer now. That and they also have more on their minds with friends and neighbors threatened by all this.”

That said, by the end of the week the store is expecting more new shipments from three growers that aren’t in threatened areas.

Budz said he hopes New Vansterdam will be able to move to being consistently open in the next few weeks, but for now it’s dependant on supplies.

“Things are actually looking pretty good for the next week,” Budz said. “We have multiple shipments coming in, and our glass and paraphernalia sales have improved. But I think it’s going to be a little while — a month or a few weeks — before I can tell you with any certainty that we’ll be open all the time.”

Cheers,
-SueVo

Here’s the contact info for both stores (and it’s always a good idea to call or check the stores’ social media sites to make sure they have product in stock before you visit):

New Vansterdam:
(360) 597-4739
6515 E Mill Plain Blvd
http://newvansterdam.com
Facebook Page
@NVansterdam on Twitter

Main Street Marijuana:
(360) 828-7737
2314 Main St.
@mainstmj on Twitter
Facebook Page