Josephine & Billie’s: Honoring the Past While Pursuing Social Equity
National media hype surrounding a new dispensary opening typically is reserved only for when cannabis plants a big green flag somewhere audacious — like MedMen’s location on Fifth Avenue in New York. Yet when a small, Black-owned store in a nondescript strip mall in central Los Angeles opened its doors last November, a wave of mainstream press followed. As one of the nation’s first dispensaries owned and operated by Black women, Josephine & Billie’s (J&B) is an overdue milestone for an industry still struggling to create social equity at the ownership level. J&B also marks a small victory for Los Angeles’s ailing social-equity program, which has spluttered and largely failed to live up to its promise of creating opportunity. Nods to the past Named after Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday , two pioneering Black women persecuted for their cannabis use, the 1,500-square-foot store is styled after “tea pads” — underground gathering places where Black and Brown communities ...