My husband and I went to Sacramento to visit our friends who are “retiring” from their wholesale tool business after decades. We drove to their warehouse, which is one of 7 very large warehouses. We asked them why they were going out of business. They said that the entire complex of warehouses which contained their business had filled up with marijuana growers. They’ve been broken into so many times. They had to put up a sign on their door that says “There is no cash and no computers inside of this business.”
The growers showed up a few years ago with enormous rolls of cash and began plunking down copious amounts of money. They started wanting more and more of space. Our friends downsized into a smaller warehouse on the premises, but then came the robberies. As time wore on, they became afraid of the people in the other warehouses.
This is YOUR America, where legitimate businesses are being driven to the brink of bankruptcy, where legitimate business people are being driven out by fear, where legitimate businesses have no rights and pot growers and the pot smokers have all the rights. If WE behaved the way they do, we would be called up on it! Do you think legitimate businesses can conduct their businesses in cash?
How can legitimate business people compete with marijuana businesses that have so much cash on hand? How dare these growers can rent an entire warehouse for over one year and not even put anything into it! If we were to show up at the bank with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, the bank would report us to the government, because that is one of the regulations now. But pot growers have more money than everyone else and they can buy everyone out. Meanwhile, they disregard federal laws.
How we’re killing the American Dream
THIS IS INSANE. This is the type of thing you see in a movie, where the heroes of the film have done everything they can to set up a business and thrive, and then criminals are allowed and enabled to walk all over them.
Our friends are Taiwanese. When we were all younger they were struggling to get their tool business off the ground in Sacramento. They told Doug about it once when he was there buying tools from them for our store. They were trying to get approved for a certain business license in Sacramento, but couldn’t get through the process. So Doug drove there, took them to the authorities and helped them get approval. They never forgot about my husband’s kindness.
They had two children and were very hard working, conscientious people. Helping them way back in the 1980s was what got them off the ground with their business and they thrived for many years. It is just so sad to see them run off from their business specifically by marijuana growers.