tients’ homes across the state, from northeast Florida to the keys. The company has prided itself on producing high-quality goods locally, and not relying on backing from large corporations. But as the years have passed and cannabis giants like Trulieve and Surterra Wellness have expanded across the state, a number of South Florida mom-and-pop CBD and med- ical-marijuana businesses have caved to cor- porate pressure or closed down. In the past two years, at least four smaller businesses in Mi- ami-Dade and Broward –– Lav CBD, HempXtra, Green Treets CBD, and Dr. Stern’s CBD –– have shut- tered. Meanwhile, Tru- lieve has grown from three to 12 dispensaries, Cura- leaf from one to seven dis- pensaries, and Liberty Health Sciences from one to five dispensaries. In order to compete coming years — it’s focused on preserving what Smuts calls its “family vibe.” “We’re really kind of growing up in terms of an organization,” Smuts says. The Flowery’s business office is located in a converted warehouse on NW 24th Street in Mi- ami’s Wynwood neighborhood that sports a mural of a pink flamingo painted across its store- front. That’s where New Times met up with Sa- bina Osman, the company’s sales and marketing coordinator and its first-ever employee. “I started out helping It’d be awfully with the major players in Florida’s multibillion-dol- lar cannabis industry, the Flowery has begun to de- viate from its small-scale roots. Over the past few months, the company has brought on at least 40 new employees, moved into a larger grow facility to manage its operations, and hired a handful of big-shot industry executives — all of whom previously over- saw operations at the cannabis company One Plant, which last year sold to Cresco Labs for $213 million. In a recent interview, the Flowery’s new chief operating officer Mike Smuts and its director of innovation, Matti Marshak, ex- plained to New Times that even though the company is expanding at a rapid clip — there are plans to open four new dispensa- ries and hire another 100 employees in the hypocritical if we took the money and ran. “ ” with compliance and a lot of licensing with the de- partment of health,” Os- man shares. “You basically have to communicate with the department of health on everything — it’s so highly regulated.” Until 2016, when Flo- ridians voted to legalize medical cannabis, state law required medical marijuana growers to have at least 30 years of experience in the plant nursery business. So the Flowery partnered with former Virginia Gardens police chief Steve Garri- son, who owned Bill’s Nursery, a longtime al- mond farm in Homestead, to kickstart its operation. Garrison had been in- spired to break into the medical marijuana indus- try after his son Matthew sustained a brain injury during the Iraq War. In January of 2017, as Garrison was persisting in his years-long push to obtain a state license to grow medical marijuana, his son died of an overdose of his sleep medica- tion. (The cause of death was ruled heart failure.) When the state failed to issue ten new pot-growing licenses by October 2017, as it had promised, Bill’s Nursery sued in federal court. The Garrisons have DOWNTOWN WEST PALM BEACH • APRIL 28-MAY 1, 2022 >> p8 FOUR DAYS. THREE STAGES. ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN: MIAMINEWTIMES.COM/FREESTUFF IS BACK! WIN TIX Brian Roberts, head of cultivation at the Flowery 4 7 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | NEW TIMES MIAMI NEW TIMES APRIL 14-20, 2022 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 Photo courtesy of the Flowery
