High Times The Beginning - Our Story

We weren’t always a Counter-Culture Club. We weren’t always a cannabis & accessory retail franchise.  Once upon a time, we were just a simple headshop that my dad, Johnny, started in a flea market.

I’m skipping a few steps, let’s go back to the very beginning. The year is 1982 and my father is operating a semi-legitimate T-shirt printing business in the basement of his friend’s place. Being a workaholic, my dad was pulling almost 16-hour days, but at least things were going well. “Well,” being a relative term as my grandmother used to tell me stories of my dad driving home in third gear because he was too tired to shift. Or there is the time he fell asleep on the stairs on the way up to his bedroom.

I digress, production was going well and my father wanted to now up his sales.

But he wasn’t much of a salesman.

That is until he discovered hash. This magical concentration of cannabis unlocked something in his brain and in his words, “he became a salesman extraordinaire”.

This discovery ultimately led him away from manufacturing and into the world of retail, where he opened up his first flea market stand. He sold rock T-shirts and other apparel, but after months of trying to make it work, things looked
bleak.

One day while sitting around people watching, he noticed a man walking around with a briefcase. My father watched as he approached all the stalls one by one. They all reacted similarly shaking their heads and waving him off. Until inevitably, he reached my father’s table, the last one before the exit.

The man spoke in desperation, opening his briefcase while ranting the words,

“Look, I’m not taking no for an answer. You’re the youngest guy in here, surely you have an open mind. Just take it on consignment, sell them for 10$ and put 5$ aside for me, I’ll be back in 2 weeks to check up on you”.

My father stood there in complete bewilderment as he looked down on a briefcase full of pipes. No one smokes out of pipes he thought, as he watched the man leave the flea
market…

Less than an hour later every single pipe had been sold. Leading to a common expression in my family,

“If you want to be successful, do what everyone else is doing just do it better, OR do something that no one else is doing.”

From here, my father began to sell more and more cannabis accessories, until that was all he sold. He saved up every single dollar, until he was able to open his first brick and mortar location in Brossard, Qc.

That, unfortunately, did not last very long. About a week into opening the police walked in and instructed my father to close his doors or they would “find” a kilo of blow. After speaking with his attorneys my dad made the wise choice to move to Laval.

After all, what can you do when the police are the ones blackmailing you?

A few weeks later my father found himself painting the front of his new store, with his friend, Nick. Who while taking a break sat on a paint can and read his HighTimes magazine that he had bought in the US the week before. He was interrupted by a passerby walking by front of the store;

“Hey! Where did you get a HT magazine!? I’ll buy it off you, How’s 10$?” (Nick had paid 5$)

After the trade, the onlooker stood on the sidewalk reading his new magazine. A few moments later another man walked by and noticed the magazine. He then proceeded to buy it for 20$.

This got my father’s attention and resulted in him naming his store HighTimes. His logic?

"I want my store to be as successful as the magazine."

 All good things come to an end, and 30 years later the real HighTimes sent a Cease and Desist, attached was a 7M$ ask.

But that is a story for another day…  

What's In A Brand Name?

I had an interesting childhood to say the least. I was born and raised in Quebec, a multi-racial, anglophone kid with a dad who owns and operates HighTimes (the store not the magazine but we’ll get to that), life was different. Though my childhood was interesting, it doesn’t hold a candle to my father’s. His was outright rough.

Rough how? Let’s just say my grandfather wasn’t the gentlest man in the world. In his defense, he is an old school Italian farmer, who had survived a war and was raised in a town with a population less than 100.

My Dad used to tell me stories about how my Nonno would come home every day after work and immediately remove his belt and beat all 3 of his sons. Screaming shit like, “this is for all the things you probably did.”

He was a simple man, hardworking, frugal but also, relentless. The kind of man who walked to work in snowstorms to arrive before even the boss. A man who today at 85 years old, still works in landscaping and snow removal. No, not as a truck driver or anything leisurely like that. He is the guy with a shovel. When my dad was growing up, anytime he asked his dad for money, my grandfather would beat him and say shit like “Go and make your own money!”

So, he did just that...

Johnny had several jobs in fact. His first encounter with work was when he decided to work for the Gazette Star delivering newspapers. Being the go-getter that he was, he signed up for several routes.  Imagine a 12-year-old wobbling down the street with several bags overflowing with newspapers. Eventually, someone took notice, and he became the first kid to get a red wagon for his paper routes. From here Johnny tried a lot of things, pretty much having success in everything he did thanks to his work ethic and stubbornness. His greatest feat?

Opening HighTimes.

All good things come to an end, and 30 years after my father had started using the name HighTimes, we received a Cease and Desist instructing us to immediately stop using the name. Oh, and they also attached a personal suit in the amount of 1M per operator/ location…. We had 7 locations then….

Convincing my extremely stubborn father that we did not own the TM was very difficult. The way he saw it, he had been using the name for 30 years and had every right to
the name. After many testy discussions, most of which included my name and the word “idiot”, my partner Brian and I finally convinced him we needed a new Brand.

We went straight to work, collaborating with branding specialists, designers and marketers. Johnny, eager to save a dollar and prove our insolence in one fell swoop, also got to work trying to think of names. We instructed him to save his time and leave it to the pros, it was after all a herculean task. In traditional Johnny fashion, he completely ignored us. Luckily, he did, after weeks of work, we had jack shit and like a genie in a bottle, he appeared from the smoke and whispered PROHIBITION. 

It was perfect, it was us. It reflected the state of the industry, the negative connotations to cannabis and of course, drew parallels to the past with the era of PROHIBITION. With our new name in hand, we settled with HighTimes magazine.

We managed to make it out of the lawsuit (just barely), but we emerged from the experience like a phoenix from the ashes.

PROHIBITION was born.

Legalization My Ass

Before I get into this, allow me to remind you, we have been in business for 30+ years. Thriving and successful all while, cannabis has been completely illegal and innocent
civilians have been sentenced for negligible amounts of cannabis possession.

Countless criminal records issued, fines disbursed, and lives ruined all over a plant that the government has now monopolized…

During these ambiguous times, we flew under the radar. Toeing the line between legal and not and existing in an area filled with gray. Avoiding prosecution by advertising that our products were for the consumption of tobacco.  In stores, we would substitute terms like “weed” with flower, “hash” with chocolate, and “stoned” with baked. It was weird and not everyone caught on to the subtleties. I can still recall a number of puzzled reactions and weird gazes when having to respond “no” with a wink to questions like “this is to smoke weed with right?”.

I’ll admit, it was and is weird. How can we be expected to properly serve clients when we are forced to operate in such a way? It’s not like we didn’t have a strict I.D. policy in place, and weren’t regularly kicking minors out of our stores.  It’s funny how something being deemed illegal paints the way in which society perceives it.

Take for example, “Spice”, better known, misleadingly I might add, as Synthetic Marijuana (Spice is a mix of shredded plant material and laboratory-made chemicals with hallucinogenic effects).

Spice was on the market for about a year before the government made it illegal. In that time, everyone and their mother bought spice. Not because it was safer than actual cannabis. (It has since been scientifically proven to be far more dangerous, and people have died from smoking it. Important to note that no one has died from smoking cannabis) It sold well because society collectively trusted a government that deemed it a “legal” substance. If they say so, then it must be safe enough to consume, it must be harmless.

This is how propaganda works, and Cannabis propaganda has done a number on us. (and still does to this day)

Anyways, all this to say, nothing would get people to reconsider cannabis consumption the way legalization could. Advocacy and education only took us so far. I mean, who are we to say different than the almighty government?  We are but a small family-run business trying to survive in a climate filled with stigmatization and pre-conceived notions.

A GLIMMER OF HOPE

Legalization started on a high note (pun intended). For the first time, the entire country was talking about Cannabis. The year was 2015 and part of Justin Trudeau’s election campaign was to legalize cannabis.

We were excited, hopeful, and full of ambition. After decades of representing the counter-culture, were we really about to go mainstream? Prohibition had hope and even a chance to potentially sell cannabis to consumers. Our minds were blown and for years, we lived with a belief that cannabis would soon be freed from its shackles. Allowing it to spread into other industries; textiles, pulp and paper, insulation, bioplastics, medicine, and food. We were excited to change the game with our decades of experience serving the same community.

Trudeau would go on to be elected making legalization a sure bet. The federal government put out a set of guidelines and then it was up to each province to decide their restrictions and regulations. Word on the street in Quebec was that the SAQ would sell it. We were in the dark, with no clue what we were facing.

The real drama came when they decided on an entire other set of rules regarding cannabis and accessories. Laws that made less sense than a 4-year-old’s crayon drawings. That’s when it got scary and then, the real craziness happened.

WHEN WE FOUND OUT WE WERE FUCKED

The closer we got to legalization, the more pressure and media scrutiny started to mount our favorite happy tree. During this time, I heard the craziest stories on the news from some of the most unqualified individuals. It was disheartening, to say the least — to hear government officials and media personalities talking about the industry and the community like they knew it or even understood it. They didn’t...Think about all the myths still circulating about cannabis being laced with fentanyl…

After years of believing that the government would be open to discussions with our community, our dreams quickly turned to dust. We went from thinking we could potentially sell flower, to the government taking over and getting into accessories as well.

The new provincial guidelines — shared by Quebec only weeks before legalization — would completely shift our business and could have possibly bankrupted us. It included a total ban on cannabis references that would touch our inventory across almost all categories. These laws would make even the term “420” illegal.

P.S. it is illegal to sell an education book on cannabis in Quebec, have an
educational cannabis workshop, or advertise any product that we sell.

“VIVE LE QUÉBEC LIBRE!”

The government didn’t give a shit. It was pure confusion around the rules and hard to get the right answers. It created stress for us and our staff, not to mention a crazy amount of work to get compliant with all the new rules and regulations.

As the largest smoking accessories chain in Canada, we sympathized with smaller retailers in the province. We could only imagine if this was hurting us, how it would affect other people and their small businesses. 

NO CELEBRATION

Legalization was supposed to be a celebration and possibly a step forward, but of course, the provincial government would fuck that up. The laws were very anti-business and it became a stressful time. Years of hope very quickly came tumbling down.

After familiarizing ourselves with the laws, we had to reorient our brand, yet again. It was another stick in the wheels for us and another hill to climb. Today, we still stand strong. Our heads are held high, the fight isn’t over. PROHIBITION isn’t over. Next, let’s take the fight to them for once. The Superior court, watch out, we have you in our sights.