![Dr. Greenthumb's West LA Opens]()
Photos: Pedro Garcia
Dr. Greenthumb's West LA Opens
Jimi Devine October 8, 2023
Dr. Greenthumb’s newest shop in West LA is two weeks old and marks the fifth shop from the LA-bred company founded by B-Real and Kenji Fujishima. The shop is located at 12235 Wilshire Ave. Fujishima is also the company’s director of cultivation and head of product development. He is also famously one of the earlier holders of OG Kush after its arrival in LA from Florida. We talked with Fujishima about the new shop this week. “Number five here, I think it feels good to have another shop in LA and especially on the west side,” Fujishima said. “People have been asking for a location over in that area for a long time. So it's definitely you know, we're all definitely excited for that to open up over there.”The process to get the shop open took over a year. We asked Fujishima how helpful it is as a cultivator to get another storefront to move his product during these dark times in the industry, especially for OGs like him. “I think as a cultivator, anybody who is cultivating, it's definitely if you have your own retail, it is going to be a 100% benefit to help you move through product because we all know how bad it is out there,” Fujishima said. “And it's nice to have the shops, it allows us to keep it special for Dr. Greenthumbs with drops to keep customers happy.” He further noted it’s especially helpful given they are working on two different lines, Dr. Greenthumb’s and Insane. Fujishima pointed to a hell of a team when asked how he balances trying to maintain the quality of the product and their ongoing expansion efforts. He noted money and product are useless without good people around you to execute. “So from the cultivation team that holds it down while we're out there trying to find places to expand the brand to the people. To the retail locations that hold it down every day and try to provide the best service possible for people, so yes, teamwork makes the dream work. That's what it is,” he said. As Fujishima noted, while the respective teams are holding it down, they’re able to focus on further expansion. While he was tight-lipped about any specific locations besides finally entering the central California market soon, they have plenty of shops in the queue. But expect a few more in LA and up North, too. 
On top of that, Dr. Greenthumb’s has joined the wave of California OGs entering other markets like Alien Labs, Fig Farms, and IC Collective. But similar to those brands’ leadership, B-Real and Kenji aren’t exactly the multistate operator monsters that come to mind as terrorizing the cannabis industry. They’re just trying to spread the heat to the masses. So far, the company has launched products in Florida, Arizona, Michigan and Washington in the last couple of months. Fujishima is expecting its retail footprint to come online in Michigan first, before moving on to other states. He isn’t taking all the moves lightly. “It doesn't mean that it's gonna be easy to just go somewhere else, right? For one. You got to have feet on the ground,” he said. “One of the most important things for us is obviously quality control, right? I can't grow and cultivate in two places at one time, like the others didn't make it so there has to be other people.”Adding to the complexities of expansion, Dr. Greenthumb’s team runs a small cultivation team with many people on the leadership side very hands-on in the garden. Fujishima doesn’t have a bunch of lieutenants he can dispatch from state to state to make sure everything is up to the company standards. This makes it all the more important that he finds people who actually know what they’re doing out of the gate. He isn’t trying to bounce around America teaching people how to grow pot, but he’s been happy so far with the results he’s seeing start to make it to shelves in other states.
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