Ernie Jr.’s Taco House in Eagle Rock, once a historic local eatery, is planned to be replaced by Stiiizy, a popular cannabis dispensary chain, according to The Eastsider LA. Stiiizy’s proposal, presented to the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council, said the dispensary is planned to open in December. Various other dispensaries have opened in NELA recently as well, such as Cloudi Cannabis and Rebud. The community response to these new openings has been varied so far, according to Eagle Rock resident Alfredo Lee.
In an Aug. 4 Facebook post, Lee expressed his disappointment about the former taco joint being replaced by a Stiiizy’s dispensary, which gained traction in the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Facebook group. He said he would rather the space be used to accommodate a new restaurant. According to Lee, some people in the comment section of his post resonated with his disappointment, while others expressed excitement about the fact that Stiiizy’s prices are more affordable than other local dispensaries.
“Some people took it as me saying that I hate dispensaries,” Lee said. “I was like, no, that’s not the issue. My issue is that we’re going to get a corporate dispensary. Is that what we want?”
Lee said he has lived in Eagle Rock for around 10 years and has watched the neighborhood change. He said there is a growing tension surrounding the gentrification of restaurants, bars, grocery stores and other businesses in NELA. When it comes to dispensaries, Lee said he prefers to support small, organic and locally-grown establishments that are explicit about their organizational values. Lee said he is apprehensive to trust dispensaries owned by large corporations.
“It makes me feel unsafe. I don’t want to put something in my body driven by profit,” Lee said. “I don’t know the level of oversight that corporations have right now over marijuana.”
Cloudi Cannabis is a local veteran-owned dispensary, which recently opened on Eagle Rock Boulevard in Aug. 2023. Founder Daniel Wise and staff members Savannah Mason and Hanna Pringle said they share a similar commitment to upholding the company’s mission and values of maintaining the wellness aspect of cannabis.
“We really enforce values of caring about what the customer needs. We’re veteran-owned so there’s a huge emphasis on maintaining the wellness aspect of cannabis,” Pringle said. “Strong values are hard to come across in this industry, especially right now, the industry is going through a lot of changes.”
According to Wise, he became involved in the cannabis industry after separating from the military. He said he spearheaded a non-profit organization to help treat veterans suffering from PTSD with cannabis products. However, despite the dedication to their mission, Wise, Pringle and Mason all said they have faced backlash since opening the dispensary in Eagle Rock.
“There is 100 percent people who do not want us to be there for whatever personal reasons that they might have,” Wise said. “They cannot stop me from opening a legal business and their opinions of that legal business at the end of the day are pretty irrelevant as long as we’re following the rules and regulations that we’re supposed to.”
Wise said California’s passing of Proposition 64 opened the legal pathway for commercial cannabis operations and allowed him to look into owning a dispensary. The Stiiizy proposal similarly cited Proposition 64 and said they would mandate all customers to show their government-issued ID at the door.
Pringle said she believes that the stigma surrounding cannabis comes from an older generation that does not understand and is not entirely educated enough on the health benefits of the plant.
“We encourage anyone who doesn’t know too much or may be curious about Cloudi [Cannabis] to stop by,” Mason said.
Contact Sydney Rey at reys@oxy.edu
