Two food vendors, a glass blower, various farmers and a lot of familiar faces milled around the south end of the Mill Street Row last Saturday, the site of a former plywood factory. They weren’t here for history, though, except the OG kind – nor Original Gangster, as the hip-hoppers would have it, but Original Growers.
The JANE Dispensary has officially opened right next to the Coyote Sonoma, a tasting room for Wilson wines and live music venue (aka the “Coyote Den”).
JANE is the second of two dispensaries approved to open in Healdsburg. Although the city long resisted jumping on the cannabis bandwagon, an internal process that took much of 2023 culminated in the selection of SolFul and JANE in November of that year.
It was not a process without drama. Mercy Wellness, one of the eight applicants for the two cannabis business licenses, cried foul and filed suit in county court that they had been unfairly overlooked. They argued that they were the victims of a secret deal among council members, an apparent Brown Act violation, and despite their high scores in the review competition (and their investment of thousands of dollars in upgrades to their preferred location, at the former Di Vine Pizza at Dry Creek Road and Healdsburg Ave.) the council made other choices.
That suit is no longer active, though the lawyers did not work pro bono.
The Solful dispensary was the first to open its doors in Healdsburg last October, in an old freestanding Victorian at 465 Healdsburg Ave. Now, a full half year later, JANE opens in a much more modern, industrial space at the other end of town. Wayne Humphrey developed the former plywood factory property in 1977; his son Steven Humphrey is the current owner.
The May 3 opening missed by just over a week the date of April 20, an unofficial cannabis holiday. “We had a couple setbacks,” said Leigh Anne Baker, the newly-named CEO of Jane Dispensary. “The state license was tough. They don’t give you a good solid timeline on how quickly things are gonna move along.”
Working with the City of Healdsburg was easier, said Baker. “They were great. They were helpful and responsive. You know, I’ve worked with a lot of cities and Healdsburg has been pretty good. I think once it got approved and we went through the whole application process and the voting, it’s been smooth since then.”
Both JANE and SolFul are regionally based dispensaries with a homey feel, and both have two other existing locations in the North Bay (Cotati and Santa Rosa for the former; Sebastopol and San Francisco for the latter). JANE Healdsburg is the larger of the two, and its open floor plan makes it easy to spot friends, neighbors and familiar faces going about their shopping.
“I think the big thing that we want people to know is that we are a local, family run business, we have a plethora of products to choose from, killer daily deals and Sonoma County’s Best Dispensary three years in a row,” said Baker.
That Saturday at the new dispensary, shoppers pursued the available product—bud both indoor- and outdoor-grown, pre-rolls, cannabis-infused sodas (from Manzanita Naturals, a Santa Rosa company), and of course gummies, including several compounded for romantic interest. An idealized mural of a happy place by Amanda Lin of Cotati covers one wall.
Sometimes the connection between the OGs is more transparent. A jar of SOG Army “Miracle Fruit” endorses the hashtag #buyweedfromfelons.
In the parking lot outside the double doors, food from Jamerikan Jerky and Grill 707, a glass-blower from Ukiah making pipes, and the easy skankin’ sounds of Pazifico created a party-like atmosphere. It’s not an altogether new vibe for Healdsburg, but it remains a welcome one.
JANE is open every day from 9am-9pm, with daily specials for shoppers. Its address is at 44D Mill St., janedispensary.com.
