On Monday, 28 workers start training for a new kind of job in Massachusetts: cannabis delivery drivers for Your Green Package.
The company, co-founded by Chris Fevry and Lourdharry Pauyo, is among the first in the Commonwealth to receive a “Marijuana Courier” license. The couple hoped to open up a “social consumption” space in Massachusetts after visiting such cannabis cafes in California — and then COVID-19 hit. Fevry was struck by the idea of a delivery service instead.
“It was the middle of the pandemic, so, you know, delivery was becoming a big thing at the time,” he said. “One year later, we’re starting the largest cannabis delivery company on the East Coast.”
The Bellingham-based Your Green Package will make deliveries for NETA, a Massachusetts cannabis company that runs dispensaries in Brookline and Northampton.
Fevry and Pauyo’s company qualifies under a state-run social equity program that prioritizes applicants whose communities have been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition and enforcement. Their executive team is all Haitian, and majority women.
To Fevry, the cannabis industry is a land of opportunity — and one that he wants to change the face of. “When I looked at the industry as a whole, you know, there’s a lot of people in jail for cannabis. And when you look at the makeup of the industry, it doesn’t really represent a lot of the people that were affected,” he said.
Both are entering the cannabis industry for the first time: Fevry previously worked for a tech startup, and Pauyo was in real estate.
GBH News has previously written about the challenges faced by small business owners who want to open marijuana dispensaries. The first Black-owned marijuana dispensary in Massachusetts opened in March 2020 , right before pandemic restrictions were put in place, and it was forced to temporarily close.
Fevry said he hopes to begin delivering in early July, pending an inspection and the final go-ahead from the Cannabis Control Commission.
One other company, Athol-based We Can Deliver , received its delivery license in May, and five additional companies have received provisional licenses, according to records available on the Cannabis Control Commission’s website.
After so much time anticipating the start of the business, “knowing that we’re really about to be training, that just feels amazing,” Pauyo said.
“Hopefully, we’ll be coming to your door some time soon,” Fevry said.
