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Date: 8/3/2022
NORTHAMPTON – A community outreach meeting is scheduled on Aug. 15 at 6:30 p.m. for a cannabis retail store that is proposed at the corner of 143 Main St. where the current Pizza Factory location is.
According to Ward 5 City Councilor Alex Jarrett, who first posted the news of the proposal on his Facebook page, the store is allowed by right in the city of Northampton but the process with the state is still a lengthy one. A community outreach meeting is required within the process.
According to the post, the retail shop – which would be named Euphorium LLC – would be managed and owned by the father-son duo of Richard and Marco Aranzullo, two longtime residents of Connecticut, while Blue Skies Unlimited affiliate and 20-year resident of Florence Ezra Parzybok acts as the consultant on the project. Parzybok is also a Social Equity Applicant in Massachusetts; with over 35 successful state submissions of retail, cultivation, independent testing laboratory and manufacturing licenses, and has been a social advocate for medical cannabis since it became legal in the state a decade ago.
In an interview with Reminder Publishing, Marco, who used to own a smoke shop and cigar lounge in Connecticut, said that a couple of different events led him down the path of the cannabis business. For one, when medical cannabis became legal in Connecticut, Aranzullo talked about getting involved in the business, but nothing panned out.
Additionally, Aranzullo said that he has a kidney issue that disallows his body to break down proteins. After realizing that painkillers made him feel sicker, Aranzullo turned to cannabis and gummies based off of a doctor recommendation. “[The experience] opened up my eyes to the whole world of cannabis, and that’s how I got involved personally,” said Aranzullo. “My interest and experience with it just grew from there.”
Euphorium would pride itself on being more intimate and locally-driven, rather than corporate-driven, especially since that was the type of aura Aranzullo presented in his own cigar shop. The goal is to start the business small, commute at first, and when the business does get established, Aranzullo wants to live in the Northampton area.
“It’s always been enjoyable to have a relationship where you can work with family,” said Aranzullo, adding that there will be other family members involved in the business. “When you spend time with people while working and not working, you kind of get different ideas, and it allows you to work better together. We’ll have a good mix of family and non-family working [in the store].”
According to Parzybok, a lot of the business’s success with developing positive community relations will hinge on developing a solid culture. “What is disappointing for me and a lot of people who subscribe or enjoy [cannabis] culture, is that once you open a retail, all of that gets sterilized,” Parzybok said. “Having a culture gets lost because some just want to open a store and do everything exactly compliant [with the state].”
With Euphorium, Aranzullo and Parzybok hope to develop a smaller footprint store with more of a personality and defined culture. Aranzullo hopes to bring the communal aspects of the cigar lounge into the cannabis business, where people can converse and throw out ideas.
“I believe that you don’t want to walk into a store, buy something, and then walk out,” said Aranzullo. “There’s more to it. You want that sense of community and culture where people don’t mind hanging out and talking with some of the budtenders or just throwing the ideas out and talking with each other. You have to offer something beyond just great customer service and a quality product.”
“The fact that Marco wants to collaborate and build a culture, it’s just exciting,” said Parzybok. “And I also just think it’s important for normalizing cannabis.”
The owner of the building that houses Pizza Factory, who Parzybok said is also a Florence resident, told Aranzullo and Parzybok that the current landlord will not renew rent for the Pizza Factory, which is something the duo found out about before choosing Florence for the retail shop. The goal is to have the shop open in June 2023, and the Pizza Factory lease ends in December. The owners chose the Florence location after researching several others across Western Mass.
“If I could wave a magic wand, Marco would be on some busy street in Springfield as close to Connecticut as possible as a strategic placement,” said Parzybok. “But Springfield currently does not have an opportunity to event start the permitting process for retail because they have a completely different system of how they choose these.”
The community meeting will be conducted at 143 Main St. in the back parking lot, and people will have the option to join in remotely, as well. This would be the first cannabis retail shop in Florence. Aranzullo said he will always be in the shop if people have concerns.