Letter to the Editor: Potential new business for Odessa

Dear community of Odessa,

My name is Levi Bridges, and I am part owner of Gold’N Grams, LLC, a family owned and operated recreational, legal cannabis farm. Our farm is currently located on the west side of the mountains in Arlington, Wash., where environmental conditions are not optimal for cannabis production. I write this to you by way of introducing ourselves and providing insight as to who we are and what we do. We would love to relocate our business to your community. Odessa is home to many agricultural businesses, as climate and growing conditions are far more suitable for and supportive of agricultural production.

We operate a Tier 3, state-licensed cannabis production and processing facility. Tier 3 is simply a description for the size of production we are allowed and allotted through our state issued licenses. Production of cannabis includes its entire life cycle, from seed to harvest. We produce both indoor and outdoor cannabis; that is to say, we utilize both artificial indoor lighting, as well as the natural seasonal growing period of the sun. Cannabis production can take place year round within the confines of an indoor, artificially-lit facility. Outdoor cannabis production is strictly seasonal, as are most other agricultural crops in our region. Outdoor cannabis is typically produced between the months of June and October, with the flowering/bud cycle coming to an end near the end of August. Harvests typically begin in the middle of September and continue through November. Processing of cannabis includes all post-harvest processing, including drying and curing of flower product, trimming and preparing of product for sale, extraction of essential oils, packaging and wholesale and retail sales.

As we hope to benefit from the agricultural potential of Odessa and it’s surrounding area, we also intend to give back and hope to become fully integrated, full-time members of your community. As such, we intend to move our operational staff and family ownership to the town of Odessa and become personally invested in the community as a commitment to our intent, success and longevity. Our business and it’s annual operations will quickly require more staffing as our sales and production increase with business development and growth. This will require us to hire additional full-time and seasonal staff. In this way we intend to provide available employment to those seeking work within the community and who are of legal age (21+) to work within the industry. We offer competitive wages and flexible hours!

Due to the nature of our business and, more specifically, the crop produced, we understand that there may be concerns within the community and among individual members. It is our most sincere desire to address and mitigate those concerns to our fullest capacity and with empathy. Odor is often a concern for some people, and while cannabis production is only odiferous during its fruiting/flowering phases, similar to most agriculture crops, it does have a faint but very unique and specific aroma that can potentially be detected in proximity to production. We will make every effort to mitigate proximal odor through the use of sealed grow facilities utilizing activated charcoal air scrubbers which effectively reduce associative odor to zero except within the confines of the facility. We also intend to operate the facility in its entirety outside of the town limits and within Lincoln County to reduce the potential of proximal odors.

Another common concern is the perception that our business could potentially draw unwanted and unproductive members of our society to your community. I assure you, this is not who we are, nor are those the types of individuals we would want in our own community or to be associated with; and certainly not the type we want or have any intention of employing. As it is our intent to draw from your community for our staffing needs, we plan to employ only faces quite familiar to you; with the exception of our own, of course, which we hope to remedy quickly by becoming active and contributing members of your community.

My educational and professional background is in biology and more specifically aquatic ecology. I have a Masters of Science degree from Eastern Washington University, where I also taught lower division biology courses for three years. From there I relocated to the west side and began my second postgraduate degree in secondary education at Western Washington University in Bellingham. While in Bellingham I taught middle school biology at Whatcom Middle School to 7th and 8th graders, which I thoroughly enjoyed. However, when recreational cannabis production became legal, I saw the business opportunity that was there and applied for and received our licenses. Since then I have brought in and included my immediate family in our business venture. My parents and I constitute the entire ownership and financing of our business. Debi is my mother and she is a school guidance counselor in Wenatchee valley. Jim, my stepfather is a highly active and contributing member of Wenatchee valley and has been head of operations for one of the local dams for over 20 years. With my family’s educational and business-management background, coupled with my own experience of more than three years in recreational and commercial-scale cannabis production, we have every intention of becoming a successful, respected and beneficial addition to your town and it’s valued inhabitants.

As I mentioned previously, we very much hope we will be able to relocate our business near Odessa, just outside of town, and that in doing so, we will be able to become acquainted with all of you. We appreciate your time and thoughtful consideration and hope that this statement allows us to introduce ourselves and serves as only the very beginning of the relationships we hope to build within your community. We would love to hear from you with thoughts, concerns and any questions you may have. Thank you again.

Levi Bridges

Gold’N Grams COO

Au.N.Grams@gmail.com