A couple of entrepreneurs from Boston have revealed plans to turn a 50-year-old strip joint in Whately MA, into a cannabis-friendly adult playground..The State of Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana in November 2018. Since then the cannabis industry has become a US$4 billion industry..The plan makes more sense knowing the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is only a 15-minute drive away and 30 minutes from the MGM hotel and casino in Springfield, which the owners believe will attract an outsize customer base..The owners, Nicholas Spagnola and Julius Sokol, told Forbes they will ditch the pole, the stage and the alcohol and replace it with a dispensary featuring half-nude budtenders..Called Club Castaway (not to be confused with the Castaway Club offered by Disney Cruises), but known locally as the Whately Ballet, the joint was purchased by Spagnola and Sokol in 2019, but was shut down in 2020 due to COVID-19 lockdowns..“Club Castaway has a long-running reputation, and we think the next step is to be the country's first topless cannabis dispensary,” Sokol said in an interview with Forbes. “It’s a unique opportunity to put Whately on the map.”.Forbes calls the concept quite shrewd, adding the state’s nascent cannabis market has plenty of room for newcomers, especially in Whately, which does not have a dispensary. There are currently about 265 cannabis retail locations and 14 delivery services in Massachusetts, according to the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. .“We’re responding to a certain amount of demand,” says Spagnola. “There's a segment of consumers who wouldn’t mind to have this type of experience when they go and purchase cannabis.”.Plans are to invest US$1 million into sprucing up the joint, with Spagnola telling Forbes a typical dispensary in a comparable area generates about US$5 million a year in sales, but the partners have set their sites much higher in the belief a little whiff of nudity can supersize their revenue. .“Our expectation would be to at least double that with a $10 million-a-year store,” says Spagnola..Spagnola and Sokol pitched their idea to the Whately town board members in February and the local press has been twirling, says Forbes..“The old Castaway as a strip club would be no more,” Spagnola said during the town meeting. “We’re leaning toward cannabis with a small twist.”.Town board member Julianna Waggoner joked that they will have to find a new nickname for the establishment besides the Whately Ballet..“It will certainly be a little mellower,” Waggoner said. Board Chair Joyce Palmer-Fortune said there’s a lot of legal questions that still need to be answered and admitted she doesn’t know how she feels about their proposal..“I don’t even know what my opinion is at this point,” said Palmer-Fortune, according to Forbes..Spagnola and Sokol secured an agreement to buy a cannabis license from a company in Whately, which never opened. Next is being reviewed for zoning and site plan reviews, and after that, seeking state approval. .“We need the state’s blessing and if you sprinkle in the nude component, it makes it that much harder,” Sokol tells Forbes..Ruby Phelps, a waitress at the Whately Diner just up the road from Club Castaway told Forbes, “It's a little funny to me that they want a cannabis strip club somewhere so remote.”.“I think it will bring the diner a lot of business,” says Phelps, “especially overnight.”
