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CNN Live Event/Special
High Profits: Hazard Pay. Aired 11-12p ET
Aired May 24, 2015 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:27] CAITLIN MCGUIRE, CO-OWNER, BRECKENRIDGE CANNABIS CLUB: As a business, we have been open every single day for the last four years. Holidays, snowstorms, we have been open. If we had to close the store because we didn't have any product to offer people, that would be so devastating.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
BRIAN ROGERS, CO-OWNER, BRECKENRIDGE CANNABIS CLUB: Welcome to Grow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks.
ROGERS: Awesome. You guys want to take a look around.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Show us around this place?
ROGERS: You got it.
I was checking Craigslist and I found a store and a garden location for sale. We're hoping to show up today and check this place out and strike a deal before anyone else gets to it.
MCGUIRE: 8,800 square feet is what the guy advertised.
ROGERS: That's the footprint. Yeah.
MCGUIRE: That is awesome.
ROGERS: This garden should be capable of producing almost $1 million a month worth of product. It will allow us to supply upwards of five stores with this one garden alone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, I've got investors now that are willing to buy your Crested Butte store, Oak Creek Garden, all these plant, all this inventory. You shake my hand, we sign a deal and you get your money tomorrow.
ROGERS: 850 total?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 850,000 total.
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Marijuana, pot, grass, whatever you want to call it, is probably the most dangerous drug in the United States.
RICHARD NIXON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I shall continue to oppose efforts to legalize marijuana.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I inhaled, frequently.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: That was the point.
(SINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What we're doing now is creating the next big tobacco of our time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a highly regulated business.
ROGERS: We're talking about daylighting a black market activity.
MCGUIRE: We're on the cutting edge of a brand new industry. And she's got you
(SINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is absolutely the next gold rush. This is the green rush.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now the dominoes are falling. Especially when they see the economic revenue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's $2 billion to be had next year. I plan to take more than my fair share.
UNIDENTIFIED HOST, BRECK BUZZ: Hello. Welcome to the Breck Buzz. I've got two wonderful guests with me today, Mayor John Warner and council member, Gary Gallagher. Wouldn't be a Breck Buzz without a little bit of discussion about marijuana.
We have had now a little bit of experience to see what's occurred. What are some of the things that we've seen?
JOHN WARNER, MAYOR OF BRECKENRIDGE: Well, one thing we've seen the first week or so, long lines at least the Cannabis Club on Main Street in Breckenridge. Not familiar with the three outfits on Airport Road. A lot of anticipation about things that might happen, that it might be the work of the devil, et cetera. It really has worked out in a fairy will benign way.
UNIDENTIFIED HOST: It seems like a non-event to some extent. And a fairly decent revenue generator yes.
WARNER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED HOST: They are doing that much business.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $2.75 is your change.
ROGERS: We chose this location in 2009. Here we are in 2014 living the dream that we had. That was to pay high rent, be downtown, supply medical marijuana from this location until the day that we could supply retail recreational marijuana for the tourists that we watched walk by our door for last four year, and now they all come in, hundreds of them a day. AT Breckenridge, we really had zero true competition. There's a couple of guys in the skirts of town that have a parking lot but there's no one downtown. We're the only ones, in the core of Breckenridge, only ones that are real in the town.
MCGUIRE: Yeah. I don't even know if you can call it competition when we're doing three times the sales that they are.
One, two, three, four, five, six, 7,000 right there.
ROGERS: What's the count on those 20s?
MCGUIRE: We had 47 bundles of two grand, so 94,000 just in 20s.
ROGERS: $94,000.
MCGUIRE: Mm-hmm.
ROGERS: We have $130,000 in a few boxes that we counted this morning and we need to put in the bank today.
For the first time I think in the history businesses, we've done above and beyond what we planned to do.
All right. We'll see you soon. All right, buy. ATM's ordered.
If we have 500 customers a day, half of them use the ATM, we make $1.50, another $450 a day. There's a little over $10,000 right here and it represents what happens when the banks do not do business with the marijuana industry.
[23:05:14] DAVID MIGOYA, THE DENVER POST: The idea that marijuana businesses would have difficulty finding banking services didn't really come to the forefront until after January 1st. Because it's federally regulated marijuana is still an illegal substance under federal law. Banks are precluded by federal law from doing business with an illegal business, and marijuana shops, even though they are theoretically and technically legal in Colorado, are illegal under federal law.
ROGERS: We have nearly 30 employees, all of which, all 30 employees, get paid in cash.
MCGUIRE: That means that Allie has got to sit there and count out every single employee's check to the penny.
ROGERS: It's extremely tedious.
MCGUIRE: Allie. Here you go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here's payroll.
ROGERS: It's about $22,000.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Awesome. Cool.
ROGERS: Thanks a lot.
MCGUIRE: We do payroll like any normal company would do. Do the hours, calculate it, send it out to our accountant. What we have to do since we don't have a bank account is cash these checks with our cash on hand.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm pretty good. I'm getting a lot faster. Took a little bit to kind of learn the system here. I basically lay out all the cash that I think I might need, try to use the big bills because I count so much money every day. Just easier with the 100s. This takes a nice chunk of my day, awful.
ROGERS: Still get issued a little check. The only place can you cash it is right here in our safe.
You sign for it as if you're cashing your check at a regular bank and then they give you your cash.
When people rob banks they often walk away with less than this amount of money, and here I am with it in my hand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
MCGUIRE: Sweet. Have a good one. Later, Jesse.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Peace.
MIKE DUDICK, BRECKENRIDGE TOWN COUNCIL MEMBER: 80 percent of the pot in Breckenridge was coming out of their doors in the wintertime. That's just not right. It's not fair that when there's four businesses that one gets 80 percent, not because they have the best priced product and service but because they have the best location.
ROGERS: There you go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, pal.
Essentially we have two locations in town where there are dispense rigs currently. Right out here on Airport Road we have four marijuana dispensaries, three of which are some combination of recreational and dual, and one that's strictly medical and one marijuana dispensary that's on Main Street.
GARY GALLAGHER, BRECKENRIDGE TOWN COUNCIL MEMBER: We should probably point out that they will be there only through -- through 2014.
UNIDENTIFIED HOST: September of 2014.
GALLAGHER: Because council passed the ordinance that we don't want recreational marijuana dispensaries in our downtown area.
DUDICK: When I was on council, we set up a zone to put the retail shops on Airport Road, and out of being, you know, nice guys from a legislative standpoint, we were told that they had a lease expired August 31st of 2014. Already. We'll grandfather you in for eight months and then you're out on September 1st. They had an unparalleled economic advantage by being the only shop on Main Street for eight months. This town would never in a million years say there only be one pizza restaurant or one hamburger restaurant or only one T-shirt shop. That's what we did. We virtually created a monopoly for them.
ROGERS: No one talks about the three stores total that were downtown, us being one of them.
MCGUIRE: No one talks about the other stores.
ROGERS: It's not like we were handed this one location.
MCGUIRE: No.
ROGERS: No, there were three of us. There isn't enough proceeds on Main Street for medical marijuana sales to support three stores in this situation.
MCGUIRE: This really bothers me that they keep saying us they are giving us the monopoly when every single one of the businesses all opened up under the same zoning codes and we all made our own decisions. And now I feel like we're being punished for the risks that we took.
ROGERS: Two of us have to go.
MCGUIRE: Yeah.
ROGERS: And we made it.
DUDICK: Brian has to go to Airport Road and will compete with prices, product and service with the three other shops on airport road.
ROGERS: Hey.
MCGUIRE: Johnny.
ROGERS: Tell me what you got there.
MCGUIRE: That's my sock. Come here.
ROGERS: Give me that sock. Give me that.
MCGUIRE: It's mine now.
ROGERS: After we got done with Crested Butte in the next 90 days, we'll be starting on applications for stores number three and four. It's going to be a lot to try to figure out how to do three stores at one time.
MCGUIRE: More stores.
ROGERS: I know, more headaches.
MCGUIRE: Yay. ROGERS: Are you ready? Then we can afford better dog food.
MCGUIRE: As if one wasn't big enough of a headache.
ROGERS: I don't know what we're going to do.
MCGUIRE: Cheers.
[23:09:45] ROGERS: Cheers.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:13:19] NICK NEIDLEIN, GROWS MARIJUANA: My name is Nick Neidlein and I grow marijuana for a living.
This is my office.
MCGUIRE: Nick, he's our head grower, our head garden manager. First and foremost, we need to have weed, and that's what we lacked for four years. We had great customer service. We had other people's products on our shelf, but we never had any of our own.
NEIDLEIN: In this room, we probably have Bomb 20. Five different strains in here right now.
ROGERS: Nick joined with us about a year ago. He was trained in house, and he has become our weed genius.
NEIDLEIN: Here at the BCC we grow a nice, good quality dense buds, very flavorful, and one of the best organic buds you'll see around.
ROGERS: We have to be able to take advantage while margins are high and prices are high, and we can afford a few hiccups but not problems like we had during medical marijuana.
NEIDLEIN: The difficulties in growing marijuana is they are very picky. You overwater them much, produce half as much and overwater them they could die. It's hard because with different strains each one of them are individual.
MCGUIRE: Nick does a really good job in the garden. He takes very good care of his plants and pays attention to detail and he does everything on time, which is really important with the plants. But the new garden that Nick's managing when it's fully built out will be 10 times the size of the garden in Breckenridge.
At this point, we're putting a lot of responsibility on Nick's shoulders to produce the product that we need him to produce in order for the business to be successful. No matter what we're doing, if we don't have weed to sell, we're not going to run a successful marijuana retail business.
On this ridiculously cold day, I'm about to get my very first tattoo. Pretty, analytical and calculated person, but I try to like force myself to do stuff like this. It does incorporate marijuana into it subtly. It's not just like pot leaf right there. Just have to try not to flinch.
[23:15:26] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't worry. You won't.
MCGUIRE: Guy holding some balloons, one of them is a pot leaf, a little stoned, he's dropped his ice cream cone on the ground and hasn't noticed. He's looking up to the sky. To me, it's also a reminder that, you know, that you should never take life too seriously, that there's always fun to have and that you shouldn't let the bad stuff get you down.
I'm pretty terrified right now. I mean, I'm trying to put on a brave face.
I think that this is a place where I really feel at home. I've kind of hopped around and never really been serious about anything. Never really known -- Oh! -- what I want to do with my life, you know, and I feel like I've found a place that I can be and that I'm comfortable.
This is a lot easier, you know, to not sleep for an entire 36 hours when you love the people that -- that you're doing it for.
ROGERS: Maura is one of the two employees that we've had for the last several months. She recently got promoted to an assistant manager at the store, which is nice for her, and I think it's nice for the store, too. She's outspoken and very creative and has a lot of great ideas.
MCGUIRE: Guys, we really appreciate you working your asses off.
ROGERS: Sweet.
MCGUIRE: And we couldn't have done this without you so we have some little presents. It's just a joint and a sticker.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGUIRE: You guys are awesome. You get to enjoy it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got the sticker.
MCGUIRE: And Maura and I have both decided that we want a demotion because you guys have your karma jars.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My tip jars never look like that.
MCGUIRE: Come by and we'll throw you a sizable discount off our ridiculous prices.
Maura and I kind of went to high school together which is a random fact. She adds a different dynamic to the store, which is nice. She's a little bit more analytical than Lauren, a little bit less bubbly maybe. Does very well with the customers, but she -- but I think sometimes she kind of intimidates people. She's got a very loud personality. She's got a very loud voice. You can hear her talking from a mile away and she's going to tell you how it is. ROGERS: Just two things we're struggling with for her, and that is
staying on task and being on time, and those are both very important, and if she wants to move up in the company, she will have to work on those, and so the future holds what Maura brings to it.
MCGUIRE: Oh, I like that one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So on the first did you guys make a lot? Make all the money?
MCGUIRE: We have blown our estimates out of the water. We actually just bought the licensing to a medical store down in Crested Butte. We're going to move on getting that recreational I think as soon as we can get our heads above water here.
None of us will ever sleep again.
So along with the Oak Creek Garden license came this awesome storefront. We're heading to Crested Butte today to really start taking over. The previous owner did not have it open for the past couple of weeks and so we are ready to get in there and take control.
ROGERS: We should be able to do maybe $3 million out of this store annually.
MCGUIRE: I was actually expecting it to be more of a closet.
ROGERS: Yeah, like all the rooms in our Breckenridge location.
MCGUIRE: This is pretty cool.
This is a pretty bad ass space.
ROGERS: New cabinets and move the office into the other corner and make the "L" go the other wear and tear this down and put a gift shop from here to the back door.
MCGUIRE: Maybe a pretty bad ass location.
ROGERS: All the hard work we've put in is hard to be satisfied with mediocre or even good returns. We're making good returns right now, but I've got at least five to ten years of good work in me. I plan to get great returns.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How goes it?
MCGUIRE: Hey, hi.
It's actually really pretty good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not too bad.
MCGUIRE: No, that one was worse but now it's just kind of a dull blah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gets numb, didn't I tell you? MCGUIRE: Yes.
This is almost like a commemorative tattoo. We made history this last year.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This has been a huge deal, and it's going to be a story I tell hundreds of time in the rest of my life, you know, not to mention I love you guys and I'm happy to like work my ass off for you.
MCGUIRE: Oh, thanks. We love you, too. Thank you so much for all your hard work.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGUIRE: You're amazing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're doing great.
MCGUIRE: We wouldn't have been able to do it without you.
ROGERS: Yeah, totally.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good luck.
MCGUIRE: Yay.
[23:20:16] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good job. It looks good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll come and see you guys.
MCGUIRE: I'm sure I'll be late for work again.
ROGERS: Better not be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fired.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She's got to be out of here by 2:50.
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rest of the ink off there. There you go.
MCGUIRE: Wow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really like it.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The American dream need not forever be deferred. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the richest and the most powerful country.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MCGUIRE: Ullr is the Nordic god of snow, so every year Breckenridge likes to have a celebration and celebrate our snow gods.
On Thursday, we're going to have the Ullr parade, which is really the highlight of the Ullr Fest. We asked some of our employees to come on over to our house and have them help us build this float for the parade.
ROGERS: The idea here is that the flexibility should be enough that we can make a joint-shaped product and get inside of it. We'll wrap it up and set it on the trailer and put the lights in the front and put the green trees in the back, looking like a little bit of pot coming out and cut a hole in the top like a canoe and then stand inside there.
Yeah. Success.
MCGUIRE: Keep it up.
[23:25:10] ROGERS: Our goal is to advertise to the council, to the customers and the potential customers, people who maybe thinking, hey, I was going to go out and get drunk tonight, but what else am I going to do. You can recreate with marijuana instead of getting drunk.
I haven't had time, you know, to be home in the daylight --
(LAUGHTER)
ROGERS: -- in well over a week. This is kind of nice to be able to relax and play and build our brand at the same time.
All the drawers should be ready. I'll ask Lauren ready to have all the drawers ready for the 3:00 exchange. All she had to do is bring $500 down and the new guy counts it. It takes two minutes and he's ready to rock 'n' roll.
Well, Lauren should have corrected you. Make sure we get that done.
So I told Lauren to have the cash drawers ready at 2:00 so we don't have the problem. Got to get the cash drawers ready and there aren't enough $1s and $5s and because they're on the deposit boxes. I'm like where are all the $1s and $5s. I told her to do this at 2:00 specifically for this reason. And Maura thought without receiving no communication that we changed policy overnight without telling anybody and made up a new policy. It's making me furious.
I will fire everyone involved if they don't start to listen.
(SHOUTING)
MCGUIRE: Ullr Fest is so funny. They throw out condoms every year. It's like a legit adult party in the middle of downtown Breck. I think our float will be received pretty well.
I found it. I found. Look at this.
(LAUGHTER)
Nice. The girls are on their way.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: The mayor is able to lift our open container restrictions so for Ullr Fest they don't actually have a liquor license but the mayor does lift the restrictions on Main Street and the bon fines just because it would become a nightmare if he didn't.
(SHOUTING)
THOMAS GORMAN (ph): What we want to do with any kind of drug is reduce the number of people using it. Yes, some people are responsible, but a whole lot of people are irresponsible people. Alcohol is our best example. We have 11,000 people killed every year by drunk drivers. We accept that? Shouldn't be acceptable. So this is what happens when you have a drug that's readily available, socially acceptable, low-perception risk and relatively cheap. I don't want that for the other drugs.
(SHOUTING)
MCGUIRE: We're making our presence known. Everyone after this parade will know that they can come in and buy weed at our store.
(SHOUTING)
MCGUIRE: I like how we have the youngest kids behind us right now. It's terrible. The only kids in this whole parade.
We're going. We're going.
ROGERS: Brace yourselves. Brace yourselves.
: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clearly using marijuana is not as dangerous as alcohol but having said that there's also evidence that it's not completely safe, especially harms to children. As children are involved in developing their lives, developing their brains, it's important that they not be exposed to substances like alcohol and marijuana which can have adverse effects.
(SHOUTING)
MCGUIRE: Oh, my god. We've got people falling out of windows up there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are we hypocritical to accommodate so much tolerance for alcohol while at the same time not tolerating marijuana? We closed down Main Street basically for the purpose of drinking beer and, you know, having a big party.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When people say family friendly, what they are really saying is conservative, and this town has never been conservative. That's not who we are. You could walk down the street. This town is not conservative.
(SHOUTING)
ROGERS: The mayor.
Hello, Mr. Mayor.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
(SHOUTING)
DUDICK: From my business, I have concerns that there's unknowns about how the rest of the country is going to perceive shops up and down Main Street.
JENNIFER MCATAMLY (ph), BUSINESS OWNER: Our bread and butter is tourism. That's how we make all of our money, and that's how we have a rec center and have a performing arts center and an ice arena, and you just don't want to kill the golden goose.
BRANDON EVANS, BUSINESS OWNER: Everything does lead back to money somehow. It's all about what are the tourists going to think?
[23:30:00] SEAN MCALLISTER, BUSINESS OWNER: Some people on the town council are owners of giant resort lodges at the base of the mountain and obviously their interest is to try to cater more to that perception interest.
JENNIFER MACATAMMY, BRECKENRIDGE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: You're a good group of guys and going to go skiing and you have a choice between Utah and Colorado, maybe you'll choose Colorado for obvious reasons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not going to choose Colorado if you're a parent. You're going to go to Utah.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They are afraid that they will not only lose business in general but get a lower class of clientele. They are afraid that the town in general will become cheaper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The resorts are powerful players, and they care a whole that gets out about the town, about the brand is what they are really focused with. I mean, these people, they might get high all the time behind closed doors, but out here in the public eye they want this to remain Disney world.
MIKE DUDICK, BRECKENRIDGE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: I feel like this could have an impact on everyone's business in this community. When pot is OK on Main Street USA, then I'm fine with it being on Main Street Breckenridge, but not until then. (SHOUTING)
CAITLIN MCGUIRE, CO-OWNER, BRECKENRIDGE CANNABIS CLUB: The parade was amazing. Everybody loves us in Breckenridge. Who knew?
BRIAN ROGERS, CO-OWNER, BRECKENRIDGE CANNABIS CLUB: (INAUDIBLE)
MCGUIRE: We knew.
ROGERS: We knew.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:34:58]MCGUIRE: Oh, my god.
(LAUGHTER)
This is all weed. Does it ever end for you to inventory?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yay.
MCGUIRE: Cannabis Club.
We do not have any edibles until Thursday.
I'm not sure when they would get here on Thursday. I would definitely recommend calling in before you come by.
It's kind crazy to be like living something that you know is going to be like a huge part of your life forever.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like just now setting in how real all that was.
What are you doing over there to our weed? Why are you dancing with our buds?
MCGUIRE: Watch. Oh, my god, Maura. What are you doing? I'm so glad we're paying you right now to dance with our buds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's what you pay me the big bucks for.
MCGUIRE: I walk by the store literally every day on my way to work, and I never buy anything from here. The first shopping day for me.
I usually just get hand-me-down clothes from Brian's sister and my mom. It just feels nice to be able to buy something and put something new in your wardrobe. As a girl, you always want to spice up your wardrobe and look nice, and I finally get to do that.
I keep looking at the price tags, and it's weird because it all seems too expensive, but I can afford it now.
Weird. First outfit.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That looks great. MCGUIRE: Thank you.
That's like nice. That's like kind of sexy. This is weird.
(LAUGHTER)
I don't know where I would wear this to, but I would wear it.
Ooh, cool, awesome. I like that one a lot.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do have to say I agree as a business owner that the retail marijuana does not need to be on Main Street Breckenridge.
MCGUIRE: I couldn't decide which ones I wanted so I think I'll take it all.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Excellent.
I think the retail marijuana customer isn't the same demographic as my general customer. But, hey, I don't know.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, a woman could be here with marijuana in her purse and I wouldn't know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready to get started?
MCGUIRE: Yes.
I'm excited.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's going to look fabulous, darling.
MCGUIRE: That's what we're going for, fabulous.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here you are.
MCGUIRE: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're very welcome.
MCGUIRE: Cool.
You are probably going to cringe when I say this, but in the last four years, I think I've paid for one haircut. And then I had my boyfriend cut my hair once.
(LAUGHTER)
I told you --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know if I've ever heard anybody say that to me before.
MCGUIRE: It's terrible. I can barely even tell anyone. I'm surprised, I told you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm glad that you told me.
(LAUGHTER)
MCGUIRE: It's weird. It's taking me time right now.
It's fair that we get to spend a little bit of money on ourselves. It's hard, you know, year after year, seeing the same pants that you've had just get worse and worse. Now I have some more money. I just don't know if I have any time.
(LAUGHTER)
If I can keep both of those things around I'll be a pretty lucky lady.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
MCGUIRE: Thank you.
Every day should be like this. This is the best day ever. It feels so good. This is what we've been working for.
NANCY GRACE, CNN HOST: In about 24 hours, the state has nearly run out of pot. Marijuana shortages.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Colorado's marijuana retailers are open for business, and business is booming.
Demand is far outstripping supply.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Business was better than even the owners could have expected.
ROGERS: We call every that has a state license every week and ask them how they are doing, everyone. Not like one or two people --
MCGUIRE: They literally laugh us off the phone.
ROGERS: And hang up on the phone.
MCGUIRE: We're paying about $10 a gram at the wholesale level right now.
ROGERS: We're buying every bit of it that comes on the radar. We just buy it.
ROGERS: Look at this. Still needs a trim. I mean, this is not manicured at all and it's kind of wet to tell you the truth.
ERIC ANSHUS, EMPLOYEE: Jeff and I weighed everything, everything, and I would say 20 percent to 30 percent of it looks like that.
ROGERS: We can't sell that.
MCGUIRE: So how much of this did we buy?
ANSHUS: 15 pounds.
[23:40:15] 15 pounds. How much did we pay?
ANSHUS: It was $3,500 a pound.
MCGUIRE: So we just spent $50,000 on this and a quarter of we can't even sell per bud.
ANSHUS: Yes.
MCGUIRE: This is why we need our own garden. We can't rely on what other people have at $38 a pound or whatever the hell we just paid for that.
ROGERS: We have too high overhead to be losing 25 percent every time we have a bag of weed around.
MCGUIRE: I mean, we just have to get this garden producing. This is -- that's just the only answer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:45:07] MCGUIRE: What have we got going on around here these days?
NICK NEIDLEIN, MARIJUANA GROWER: I think we're falling behind a little bit.
ROGERS: Yeah. These are the same size as the last time I was here. Are we behind on production?
NEIDLEIN: Yeah, we're probably like two weeks behind, you know.
ROGERS: I get no calls saying there's any problems, just come by for a standard checkup. Nick tells me we're two weeks behind schedule. Since a week after you left, we haven't got anything done.
Why are we two weeks?
NEIDLEIN: I got thrown into problems that -- you know, things aren't the same everywhere. This building is a big piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED). The water is different here, doesn't stay heated, get cold spots, the temperatures are hard to regulate, it's super humid in here.
ROGERS: At $20,000 a day, that's like $300,000 of production that we're behind.
NEIDLEIN: This building needs a lot of work and I can't grow and fix the building at the same time. It's not like Breck. Everything -- all the kinks have been worked out. We have a lot to do. I'm growing at 10 times the scale as I used to. MCGUIRE: The new garden that Nick is managing when it's fully built
out will be 10 times the size of the garden that he managed in Breckenridge. Soon enough we'll be shutting down our Breckenridge garden so we won't even have another garden to fall back on.
NEIDLEIN: Things will come around. I'll get it, but there's only so much I can do.
ROGERS: Right now Oak Creek Garden doesn't supply anything for our businesses except for overhead. If Oak Creek doesn't produce, we'll be out of money and we'll have to sell everything and walk away with what we've got in equity.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: When you think about the product they have that's so valuable and prone to theft and you think about the cash nature of the business, this is becoming a public safety issue for some of these companies. They are essentially operating a cash business here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had one incident where the people had closed, gone out into the parking lot to go home, and were taken back in at gunpoint, taken down to the basement of the dispensary, and the manager was forced to open the safe.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's $100,000 in the safe. I'm a 100-pound girl closing the shop at night with nobody there.
I think that I have a high-risk job. This store is in an old house, you know, that doesn't have reinforced locks. Hell, we don't even have the key to the back door, so if someone breaks down the front door, I have no exit.
A lot of places in Denver, they have armored cars come and pick up the money. They have steel bars. They have bulletproof glass. I mean, you know, blocking the person.
ROGERS: They are also in Denver.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That bubble mindset --
ROGERS: Liquor stores have those in Denver. We don't have those in our liquor stores but the risk is mitigated by --
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do they have a safe with upwards of $200,000 cash sometimes? I think that bubble mindset is very dangerous.
MCGUIRE: We are step by step trying to figure out what we need to do to increase security.
ROGERS: Yeah.
MCGUIRE: We've discussed having a security guard here. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like with all this money I'm really
worried it's going to change them and I'm also very worried it's already happened.
People are high-risk positions, they get paid more. There's something called hazard pay.
ROGERS: I understand.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that's a thing that exists.
ROGERS: If you were to go to 7-Eleven and ask the man what he gets paid for the night shift, my guess is less than $15 an hour.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm only actually making $13 an hour. I need to buy my salary with all of these hours and stuff. When the bud tenders are making $1 less than me but they are also netting, you know, server's tips every day, it's hard, you know, to be managing people that are making $5 to $10 more an hour than you.
ROGERS: Sure. I understand your frustrations with the more hours we ask you work the lower dollar rate we get, but right now, it's as busy as we'll probably ever going to be and it's chaotic and will require as many hours as we'll ever require. Those things I think are going to balance out a lot. And when you look at the future for these people, their resumes will say bud tenders, whereas managers, you put to put manager and management.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brian and Caitlin have definitely already started to change.
ROGERS: It's also supply and demand. There are a lot of managers that are willing to work in this industry for that pay. Paying you more doesn't make you safer. It just makes you stay in that position, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I get a gun pointed at my head, regardless of if I end up getting shot in the head, I still have to deal with the fact that I got a gun pointed at my head. That's traumatic.
ROGERS: So if I'm hearing you correctly, you'd be willing to get robbed for more money, is that -- is that right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You gave me $100,000 a year, I'd be willing to get robbed, yeah, absolutely.
ROGERS: Other people would be willing to get robbed for $35,000. People have different expectations for different pay.
MCGUIRE: Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, I don't think we'll ever be able to justify $100,000 a year, sorry.
[23:50:15] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's an exaggeration.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGUIRE: Managers or assistant managers.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If what you want to talk about does money -- does money factor into that? Yes.
How aim supposed to be happy with $13 an hour when I watch them bring in 100 grand in three days.
ROGERS: You want more pay for that risk and maybe that's where we'll differ because other people would take that risk for the same pay. I mean, other than that, I thought you were happy, so, all of a sudden, hear the 48 to 54 hours a week and $35,000 is not enough when you worked so well for $11.50 an hour all last year. I know you could do whatever homework and the work was slow and the risk was smaller. I feel like it's a giant jump. I don't know. You might personally think you need more pay for your position, and we just might disagree.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:54:53] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been here nine years, since 2005. Lived in several towns across the country, never lived in a town that's been so generous in terms of what it does for not only the people but the workforce as well as a lot of the not-for-profit organizations in the community. It's really a giving, giving community. Everybody is on the town council in order to make the community even better. Nobody is out to obviously damage the brand or the image. They want to be part of making Breck an even a better community than it already is. That's one of the things that I like about Breckenridge is that everybody is trying to make it even better.
Now, with that as different issues come up, everybody has their own internal compass, and, you know, whether it's folks that supported them in election or just their own internal compasses they will see issues a particular way.
ROGERS: In September of 2013 we thought council would be reasonable but ended up being 5-1 against us.
JOHN WARNER, MAYOR OF BRECKENRIDGE: We voted to mandate that the retail sale of marijuana would be prohibited in the downtown core of Breckenridge.
ROGERS: Ben Brewer was the one, yes. And then we had John Warner, the mayor. He voted against us. Jennifer MacAtammy voted against us. Mike Dudick voted against us. And Wendy Wolfe was recused and couldn't vote. And Gary Gallagher voted against us. Mark Burke was absent.
MCGUIRE: We collected over $120,000 in taxes in January, in taxes. We had to go hand to the people that voted to kick us out of our location.
ROGERS: This council screwed us, clear as day. They screwed us right out of everything we worked for.
MCGUIRE: One evening, one vote, and they took everything away from us. This location is everything.
ROGERS: We played by the rules, and they still kicked us out of Main Street.
We have five weeks until we have a new town council.
UNIDENTIFIED HOST: April 1st we have an election coming up. Breckenridge is going to have three seats open.
Jen, you're term-limited, so.
MACATAMMY: This is my swan song on "Breck Buzz."
(CROSSTALK)
ROGERS: If the current members of council aren't going to come around and be reasonable and do what I believe the people want and keep us on Main Street raising this tax revenue, I'm going to take to get the new council members to be more reasonable.
MCGUIRE: We need to work to get council members that are going to side with us.
ROGERS: People that are much younger.
MCGUIRE: In touch.
ROGERS: People in touch.
MCGUIRE: We've already had three of the candidates running for a seat contact us, specifically, and I think I know what they want to talk about.
ROGERS: Marijuana is so mainstream, especially if this town. They are contacting us to support them publicly.
MCGUIRE: I think we need to make some donations.
ROGERS: We need to come up with a budget what have we can do to support these people.
If you want to sell marijuana to tourists and want that tax revenue, it's the Breckenridge Cannabis Club downtown.
Five weeks away.
MCGUIRE: That's what we need to do.
ROGERS: And we'll stay right where we are.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hope they are successful. I know that they have been working on expanding. I hope that all of it goes as well as it possibly could.
They have put years and years of their life into this business. I wish them nothing but the best. But I'm just wondering with all this money coming in, I see Brian and
Caitlin get new cars, new makeovers, new clothes, which is awesome. They are the owners of the business. Hell, yeah. But you didn't do it alone.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, it's hard to count hundreds of thousands of dollars by hand when you don't feel like you're getting even close to what you deserve for the work that you put into it.
At the end of the day it's their business, obviously. It's their time and money that they put into that so when, you know, you've put the numbers into that equation, I leave. So I did.
ROGERS: Give us 100 days and we'll have $1 million worth of marijuana.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cash is king and Brian has a ton.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have a target painted on their back.
ROGERS: This makes me nervous.
I mean, is that real?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Brian is holding all the cards right now and the other dispensaries are empty handed.
ROGERS: Like carpet baggers, they want in and they want a part.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're talk millions of dollars. But you have to understand, we're going -- we have to do something.
ROGERS: We're a great soap opera right now. These guys filming it are loving this.
MCGUIRE: It's hard to want to keep working when everything else is so hard.
ROGERS: We've got to end this because otherwise I'm going to have a mental breakdown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a big boy operation now. There's no more games.
