access
By wES abNEY | Photos by Daniel Berman
Minding The Mantra DOCKSIDE CO-OP HAS CULTIVATED A WARM & WELCOMING ENVIRONMENT DOWN IN FREMONT
IN
the realm of medical Cannabis, knowledge is power. Many patients must rely on their access points to provide them with accurate and useful information, as well as products. Dockside Cooperative empowers patients while going the extra mile to provide a quality experience. From the structure of the sales-tax-compliantnonprofit co-op to the tested medicine on the shelf, the co-op is an excellent model for MMJ organizations. While some access points grow and improve in awkward spurts, the model developed by founders Oscar Velasco-Schmitz, Maria Moses and Aaron Varney has served them perfectly since opening.
28/jan. 2014 FACEBOOK.COM/NWLEAF
the founders Oscar Velasco-Schmitz,
Maria Moses and Aaron Varney with some of their staff in the back budroom.
If you ask them, they would point to their handbook, at the center of which is their business mantra, “We don’t want to be the best in the industry, but the best for the industry.” That mindset has served the co-op and its patients with a sustainable reliability not easily achieved. “We have fundamental values that guide us, and we try to remind ourselves continually of them, but we also really try to have fun. It’s reflected in interactions with the patients, our staff, and the community at large,” Oscar explained. “It’s like having a type of faith that everything will be all right, as long as we keep doing things with good intentions and good deeds.”