Haight Street Marijuana — Then & Now

SUNNY!Sunshine Powers has been part owner/operational manager of Haight Street’s tie-dye mecca, Jammin’ on Haight, since they opened in 2012. This good-vibes San Francisco neighborhood store is loaded with all-things hippie, and Sunshine is the Cheshire Cat behind it all, dedicated to keeping the original spirit of the ’60s and the Haight-Ashbury community alive, colorful and kind.

I had the pleasure of hanging with Sunny (and all her sparkles) recently to talk to her about the current state of Haight Street, the homeless kids situation, the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 2017, and the realities of marijuana — then and now.

Linda Kelly: Hey girl. Good to see you. Here, you can hold the recorder.

Sunshine Powers: Okay. Hi! Sunshine Powers here, reporting on pot news for The 420 Book.

LK: Yes, a fabulous marijuana dispensary listings magazine.

SP: Yeah, where you get your weed at, bitches! [laughter]

LK: How do you think marijuana influences Haight Street and Jammin?

SP: Haight Street is where I smoked my first bowl, on the corner of Haight and Masonic in 1992, so marijuana and Haight Street have always been a part of my life. The two kind of coincide.

As far as how pot influences now, it’s amazing how marijuana is not legal but it’s not really frowned upon on Haight Street. The cops really aren’t going to mess with you — unless you’re a homeless kid. Then they’re going to mess with you. The cops seem to mess with our homeless community more, no matter what they do.

For me personally, I feel that marijuana’s not the issue on Haight Street. It’s something that, if anything, it’s gonna mellow you out. People don’t smoke a lot of weed and freak out or get really angry. I mean, they might get angry on their own will, but it doesn’t really cause the impairment that other drugs do.

We have a much bigger alcohol problem on Haight Street.

For legal purposes, I don’t condone smoking at my store. It used to be a little bit more open but as time goes on, you find you kind of have to be strict about stuff because you’re dealing with so many people. I don’t really ask what they do, I just make sure they’re able to work. If you’re able to work and talk to people, then that’s all gravy, you know.

I smoke marijuana. I have my medical card. But for me, I work about 80+ hours a week. I have four different jobs. I own two companies. So as long as I’m getting done what I need to get done, I’m okay with me smoking weed if it helps balance out my chi.

Today, marijuana’s everywhere. It’s amazing how mainstream it’s become. It’s not just the hippie with the long hair and the bell-bottoms smoking weed on the corner, it’s their mom and dad smoking weed on the corner with them. One of them is in a business suit, you know? While I feel most people that own a tie-dye might smoke weed, it is not just the people wearing tie-dye that smoke weed anymore.

I think there’s big difference, too, between 50 years ago and today how weed, yoga, growing your own vegetables, meditation — all of this you would’ve thought as a hippie back in the day. And today, like, who doesn’t do yoga? Who doesn’t smoke some weed? Who doesn’t eat organic vegetables, right? Fifty years ago here in this neighborhood, pot was a revolutionary thing, and all those things being so mainstream today is due largely in part to what happened here in the Haight back then.

And today, our rainbow store [Jammin’] on the corner is the gateway to Haight and Ashbury. We are the portal. And that’s another reason why we feel it’s our duty to bring the color and the vibrancy that Haight Street is known for. It’s also our duty to improve the street and to do good for our community. It would be pointless for us to be on the corner and not be doing good. It has been just awesome to be able to be a part of this community.

LK: It’s like you’re bridging the past and the present.

SP: Yeah! We are! We are the next generation. We have to carry it on and teach our children.

JamminSunnyHaight and Masonic, that’s my corner. I’m very possessive of it. It’s our mission to revitalize, to bring back the color, creativity and consciousness that Haight Street is historically known for. We are approaching the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and we are about to get 100,000 people here again, and it’s our duty as people of the historic Haight Street to prove to them a way of life that is peaceful and full of love, where people actually communicate and get along and find real solutions to real problems.

We’re also doing a retrospective of the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, how it started, where it is today. And we are going to try and change the name of Haight Street to Luv Street for at least a summer — because love always overpowers hate.

LK: “Powers” being the operative word — wink, wink.

SP: Yeah!

LK: We should probably mention that we’re doing this interview right next to the Grateful Dead’s original house on Ashbury.

SP: Yeah. Stanley Mouse and the Hell’s Angels used to live across the street, Janis Joplin and Country Joe McDonald. I have a parking spot. Life is good!

LK: Tell me about the walking tours you’re doing in the ‘hood.

SP: I am a tour guide at Flower Power Walking Tours and it’s really awesome because I feel like if Jammin on Haight’s mission is to revitalize the street, then it’s kind of my finishing the cycle to be able to educate tourists and people that come on my tour about what happened here that changed society, about the programs here, the community that happened here.

This is an epicenter of conscious revolution, and it’s something that still happens to this day. I get to tell the people all about our homeless organization, Takin’ It to the Streets, and about the wonderful success that we’ve had. We’ve been able to give the homeless the job — in exchange for shelter and food — of taking care of our community, keeping it clean. We’ve been able to create a true sense of community, which was lacking here for a while. It used to be us against them, and now we literally stand together. It’s a beautiful thing. We’ve been able to do what the cops haven’t been able to do in 30 years and clean up the corner.

LK: And what about medical marijuana and the homeless?

SP: We work with our homeless kids to get 215 cards so that they can be legal and they won’t be hassled on the street. We don’t want anything illegal going on in our program, and if we can encourage them to be legal in their possession of marijuana, then that gives them a comfort being on the street, you know? They can’t get hassled to a certain extent if they have their medical card. I’d rather have these kids have as many rights and abilities as they possibly can, and having their 215 card gives them the ability to smoke marijuana if they want to. And if that’s what they want to do, then let’s help them do that, but help them do it in a way where it’s legal for them, and that’s one less thing the cops can hassle them.

LK: Since the day you first smoked pot to the state of cannabis today and how readily available it is, has this made life easier for you?

SP: I don’t know if easy access to smoking weed has made my life easier because now it’s harder for me to travel sometimes because I worry about getting weed as easily as I do here, or knowing where to go to get it when I get there.

LK: Well, that’s why we have dispensary listings, like The420Book. Ha — that’s a nice little plug!

SP: Absolutely.

LK: They’re soon going to have GPS so if you go on a trip and you’re like, “Oh, where’s the nearest dispensary?” You just put it in your GPS and go straight to the store.

SP: The reality of the situation is that the world’s view on marijuana is changing, especially now that the government has realized they can tax it, you know? Like wow! People come into the shop and they ask me where to get weed and I’m not legally allowed to tell them. But I’ll say, “Just go on the street, you’ll figure it out.”

You can get a medical marijuana prescription upstairs at Amoeba Records on Haight. And, you know, there are dispensaries that delivery weed now too.

If anything, sometimes I could see myself maybe wanting to smoke less pot. But it’s just not gonna happen anytime soon. [laughs]

LK: Are you a sativa girl or an indica girl?

SP: I like both. My favorite pot is from back in the day. A long time ago, I grew pot. It was a Trinity Blueberry and it was delicious!

LK: Is there anything you want to say about marijuana just in general?

SP: You know, if you can smoke weed and function and be able to get what you need to get done, smoke weed. If smokin’ weed makes you not be able to get your stuff done and makes you all loopy, you might not wanna smoke weed, right? It’s about finding what works for you and helps you be what you believe is a better person.

LK: Okay. One more question. Your favorite story of somebody, maybe Wavy Gravy or whoever, who’s been in Jammin’ and you smoked a big joint with and had a funny moment with — off the top of your head. I’m sure there’s been a million.

SP: There have been a lot!

LK: You know, where you’re just laughing your fucking head off and you’re in a super stoned moment with somebody incredible, like Stanley or Wavy or …

SP: Well, I have a great story but I don’t really want it out on tape, but it’s about Stanley Owsley’s wife. She’s pretty cool. Enough said!

LK: Okay. You mentioned you’re going to the Dead show tomorrow in Colorado …

SP: Yes. I’ve never been to Colorado since they legalized weed, so this should be interesting. I’m super excited about that.

LK: Interesting. Remember your experience and maybe maybe it’ll go in the next issue of the magazine: Sunny’s first time in legal Colorado!

SP: Yeah, I’m excited. I’m gonna be like a kid in a candy store.

LK: Anything else you’d like to say to the cannabis crowd out there?

SP: Teamwork makes the dream work!

 

 

 

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