“I was always on the trail of legalization, just waiting the last 20 years for it to present itself,” Felix tells me in a Zoom interview with the entrepreneurs. “So, I was aware of what was going on.”While Kingston and Felix waited for legalization to catch up with their plans, they went to work creating and building their brand.
“I told him I’m just trying to do this for my family, and I just told my situation,” Kingston says. “And he sold me his property.” With medical marijuana cultivation license in hand, Kingston went to work creating his new operation, this time under the sun in greenhouses. Although the environment was different, he relied on his experience and commitment to grow clean cannabis without pesticides or synthetic fertilizers to guide his operation. Before long, he was again producing top-shelf bud, this time for Oregon’s medical marijuana patients.
“Nobody knew who we were,” remembers Felix. “We were probably the only African American company that was at the event.”With success came increased brand awareness, and in 2018 GasHouse moved its headquarters south to California. The state’s voters had legalized recreational marijuana two years earlier, and the onset of legal adult-use sales marked the creation of the largest regulated cannabis market in the world. GasHouse was ready to get in the mix.
Once established in the Golden State, the accolades continued to roll in for GasHouse. Encouraged by their early success, Kingston and Felix entered other competitions, taking first-place finishes at both the 2018 High Times Norcal Cannabis Cup and the 2019 Chalice Cup.