Zenon Stepkowski

30 years ago on this day, July 7, 1994, I opened “Hemp BC: The Hemp & Marijuana Center for Greater Vancouver” at 324 West Hastings. The former tenant, The Enver Hoxna Communist Albanian Bookstore, had been firebombed so I had paid $500 for the first months rent, cleaned up the debris of the firebombing. I had $4,000 for inventory and could only afford to renovate the first 5 metres from the front door. It was pay as you go, Hemp BC caught on, and that $4,000 in inventory became $1 million in sales our first year. We began wholesaling pipes and bongs and grow books and was supplying 60 stores by mid 1995. We started a newsletter even before opening the Hemp BC store, April 1994 was the first issue of the Marijuana & Hemp Newsletter, by Spring 1995 it becomes Cannabis Canada Magazine, and to broaden our circulation into the USA, Cannabis Culture Magazine by 1998. I wrote a review of our success in December 1994 cannabisculture.com/content/…