Strawberry Fields is the first Denver dispensary approved to work with delivery companies to bring marijuana straight to customers' doors. The business aims to team up with social equity transporters to deliver vapes, flower and edibles.
Strawberry Fields was founded in Colorado 12 years ago by brothers Mike and Rich Kwesell. The two bought their Denver location at 3435 S. Yosemite St. in the Hampden neighborhood in March of this year.
Faline VanLandschoot, the chief of operations at Strawberry Fields, said the dispensary has plans to work with transporter Doobba LLC, the first social equity applicant to apply to deliver in Denver. Social equity licenses are aimed towards business-owners who have been negatively effected by the war on drugs, the effects of which are still present in marijuana enforcement a decade later.
Social equity applicants for delivery will be given exclusive access for the next three years.
Doobba is slated to receive final city approval for its license early Thursday. Then, they will be free to start deliveries with Strawberry Fields at any time. According to the city, three other businesses have applied for delivery licenses, and Strawberry Fields said they would be open to working with them as well.
But transporters have fewer options for dispensaries to team up with. Strawberry Fields is the only applicant in Denver so far, turning in an application just days after the city started accepting them on June 23.
VanLandschoot explained that deliveries will be set up in a similar way to that of DoorDash or Uber Eats. Customers order directly from the dispensary which will then work with the transporter to deliver.
One of Denver's biggest dispensary companies, LivWell, has not said whether it plans to apply for delivery licenses. But Native Roots, another large chain in the city, said they were "excited to partner with a social equity transporter to bring delivery to our customers." But city officials have not yet received an application from either company.
In 2020, Native Roots acquired a delivery permit in the city of Boulder, where working with social equity businesses is not required. According to their website, customers may place delivery orders of vapes, flower and edibles to homes in Boulder -- but there's a $100 minimum for every order. At the height of the pandemic, they supported a petition to allow marijuana delivery in Colorado.
Ethan Shean, the chief of retail operations for Strawberry Fields, said he was happy his business was getting involved in social equity.
"There's homebound patients. There's patients and consumers who rely on public transportation," Shean said. "We've always been monitoring delivery, and we were glad and ecstatic to be prepared enough to to get it in as quickly as possible."
This story was updated on July 26 with a statement from Native Roots.
