We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelsy Yates a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelsy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Idea to execution isn’t necessarily linear nor expedient. It has taken us about 3 years to incarnate our initial vision. When we first started, we wanted to create a destination for the Denver community. It wasn’t about just selling marijuana. We were pushing against traditional notions and practices of most dispensaries. We wanted a shop that was inviting, was beautifully designed, and was an educational hub for the latest information around cannabis—whether medicinal or recreational. We also wanted to push against the cannabis market trends that we felt were detrimental to the community, such as the misnomer that higher THC % equals better marijuana and/or effects. Instead we wanted to communicate the importance of the entourage effect and terpenes. Ultimately, we wanted our dispensaries to offer an improved product and experience, which we believed would not only earn a respectable market share in a heavily saturated market but would expand our market to those that were curious but intimated by cannabis. Furthermore, beyond any purely financial or business end, the conception of Police & Thieves dispensaries was rooted in moral and ethical choices as well.

The difficulties were numerous and immediate.

The first issue was finding businesses that had a similar view on the industry as us and that had found a financially viable path with that mindset. We started with product, focusing on flower. Many grows did not test for terpenes because of the cost. Some grows were more focused on margins than quality. Other grows just couldn’t provide consistency. Also, the staff we inherited believed customers did not care about a balance of cannabinoids for a better high, and our managers at the time, implemented the traditional Monday Munchies because “we needed to compete against other dispensaries who did offer a set discount off broad categories by day of the week.” All these issues we traversed, sometimes screwed up, but ultimately always resolved in a manner in which makes us proud of Police & Thieves.

One of the most important things I have learned is that having the right team on board to implement your vision is crucial. In the beginning, we did not have the right players. We were bequeathed a business with low morale and customer service, a business that hadn’t paid attention to details, that lacked a distinctive brand, that lacked a positive culture, and that ignored analytics.

We found a stupendous General Manger who has been in the industry for years and has great relationships with vendors and an outstanding ability to keep our inventory varied and in stock. We began to work with Casa, a company that provides very detailed and curated analytical reporting so we can better track our promotions, customers service, budtender performance, and MoM sales, and we’ve hired an outstanding Director of Retail who is coming to us from the beauty industry and who knows how to implement our vision. It has taken us two years to clean up the back of house, to hire better, and train better. Our launch into the business we envisioned has taken years. Better prolonged than always longing and never realized.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Police & Thieves is your cannabis guide. Our staff is well educated and dedicated to staying informed of the latest developments in cannabis. We prioritize a superior shopping experience: our shops are considered, in design and layout, and we are stocked with products that we staunchly endorse. We provide the restless connoisseur with high quality products and a new perspective on an ancient plant. This question ties into the first one in that we are distinguishing ourselves through our expertise and emphasis on a well-balanced, daily supplemental regiment of cannabinoids where you don’t have to get high to sleep better, to feel better, and find a good recovery program for your athletic and busy lifestyle. The beautiful thing about cannabis and how it works with our endocannabinoid system to help regulate cellular homeostasis is that the phytocannabinoids can bind to CB1 and CB2 receptors that are located throughout our body. This is why there is such a range in issues that cannabis can help alleviate. But because of this range, it also makes it difficult to find your right product and dose because cannabis interacts differently with everyone’s own blueprint. There are a lot of people who do not want to experiment or are worried about having a bad high. Our staff is really excellent in helping people find what will work with them, and when you add in a DNA test from Dynamic DNA (one of our partners), it gets even more precise.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

David and I are the co-founders and co-owners of Police & Thieves. We are married, have two young kids, and run the company together. We are partners in every area of our life. We met at a writer’s conference in Breadloaf Vermont during a ten-day workshop. We like to joke that it was a place for romance, with the Robert Frost Cabin and a field of yellow flowers. While it was ultimately a love story, it started as a friendship. That bond, of friendship, has made our transition from married couple to business partners seamless. We take our roles and approach to family into our business. David is a poet by trade, and I am a fiction writer. I mention our art background because it has informed how we have approached our work, both in the communities we support and in our workflow—David’s poetry translating easily to marketing, branding, and ethos, and my very literal and analytical tendencies for plot and craft translating to operations.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We have built our reputation by being consistent, having clear communication with vendors and customers alike, and by giving back to the community through several free events that were aimed at celebrating cannabis and bringing people together. We have strong relationships with people in the industry because of this consistency (and always paying on time) but also because people see that we are building a different type of dispensary. While we are a welcoming place for novice and expert alike, we also don’t shy away from the fact that we sell cannabis and cannabis is still federally illegal. We push back on the whitewashing on an industry where there is a large disconnect between the fact that a disproportionate number of black and brown people are incarcerated for marijuana while there is a booming multimillion dollar industry happening across the country. Our name, Police & Thieves, comes from the roots reggae song by Junior Mervin and is emblematic of resistance. The Virgin Mary used in our imagery is also a symbol of subversion to power and is meant to be somewhat controversial. (See our Maria Juana reel explaining one line of thinking on the etymology of marijuana). Most dispensaries are still focused on low prices and good product. This is a must for every dispensary in Denver, but for us, it is not good enough to stop there. We want a brand. We want to have a voice, and we want to make a change in people’s life for the better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.policeandthieves.com
• Instagram: policeandthievesco

Image Credits

William Avent
Ian Warren
Drew Heffron
David Tomas Martinez
David Perez
Steven John Miner