A Note From Jenna & Quinn: Happy New Year!

Jenna reflects on 2021, while Quinn lays out their hopes for 2022.

Now that 2021 is officially over, we thought we should take some time to look back on everything that went down. 2021 has been filled with challenges at Prairie and Luna, and it has been so humbling and rewarding to watch our team come together and figure things out day by day. I smoke a lot of weed but I’m going to try my best to recap.

We began 2021 in lockdown. P&L existed in our cute, tiny little Pembroke location. Remember that everyone??? We were delivering weed, offering walk up service in the mall, and including colouring sheets in everyone’s orders to try to brighten spirits. At some point things started to open back up, and we could welcome you back inside again! At the same time, we were hustling to get our Petawawa location open for the early spring. On April 7th, 2021 we were finally able to open our doors at our Petawawa location!! We were so excited to finally share this space with everyone, only to go into lockdown again the very next day. Classic…

I don’t even remember being upset, honestly. I knew I could count on my team to roll with the punches and once again figure shit out. We had two stores offering curbside pick up only. We were fortunate to remain busy, because who wants to ride out a lockdown without some good quality cannabis? The lockdown didn’t last too long, and before long it was summer. 

Summer was a happy time!! Although we were sad to close our Pembroke location in June, our sunny spot in Petawawa just felt like home. We could finally have customers back inside, all of our staff back, and summers in Petawawa are just so dang nice. We had a FABULOUS parking lot drag show for our Grand Opening celebration!! We also welcomed TWO P&L babies over the summer (Kait had a baby girl and Charlotte had a baby boy shortly after). 

Our team continued to grow in other ways as well, honing their skills as budtenders and managers. As the weather turned cooler and fall/winter settled in, we continued to focus on researching and curating our menu to offer the best cannabis selection, while prioritizing supporting cannabis companies whose values align best with ours. 

I continue to be completely humbled to be surrounded by the team at Prairie and Luna. It is such a happy place to come and work, and with each change of season we all become more knowledgeable and proficient at helping customers find cannabis to best suit their needs. Since first opening Prairie and Luna in 2019 as a cannabis accessory shop, we have been constantly learning and working out the kinks. We’ve grown from a team of 2 to a team of 14 (not including babies, although there is one more expected to arrive any day now!!)

With all the shitty things happening in the world right now, we could all use a little more kindness, gratitude, and weed. I am so proud of Prairie and Luna, and so grateful for each and every customer we have had the pleasure of serving this year, and every year. 

Thank you to my P&L team, and thank you Pembroke and Petawawa for having us and visiting us. We look forward to many more years to come! 

Xoxo, Jenna

As I look forward to the year to come, I know that the only thing that’s sure in such a new industry is that things will look completely different by this time next year. What I hope to see is small-scale, craft producers snatching market share away from massive corporate conglomerates. I hope to see cannabis that is packaged more sustainably, more effectively for freshness, with much, MUCH clearer, more informative labeling. Let’s get those terpenes on the jars, LPs!

I hope the weed is fresher by the time it makes it into our shop, I hope the tax burden on small producers is lessened, and I hope whoever decides what the OCS brings in starts actually smoking weed this year.

I really hope consumers will begin to be more selective with the power of their dollar this coming year. I hope every legal weed smoker across Ontario decides to take their business to retailers who are in it for the love of weed, not the love of profit, and to producers and brands whose grow/cure/packaging practices demonstrate love of the plant and love of the stoner whose lungs will be the final decider. I hope the legal market continues to be self-reflective and never starts to feel entitled to the business of legacy market consumers. I hope we compete fairly, rather than by contributing to the criminalization of those who continue to grow and sell outside the legal market. I hope pathways to legal production become more accessible - not only to right the enormous income and racial inequalities in the legal market, but to get better weed in consumers’ bongs. The depth of knowledge of the legacy market is what’s still missing from the legal market, but it gets better every time a legacy grower joins (or, better yet, spearheads) a legal grow team.

I hope that one day, Jenna and I will be able to source the products we bring in straight from growers, so that we can exclusively sell bud we’re proud of from growers we know and trust. For this year, though, we’ll continue to curate a selection of craft bud whose quality we stand behind, value bud because everyone at every income level should be able to access legal weed, and keep listening to you, our customer-friends, to guide every decision we make. 

I can’t wait to see where our team is by this time next year. We’ll have another handful of P&L babies in the mix, we’ll all be another year wiser and more experienced navigating this industry, and we’ll be just as grateful as we are today (and every day.)

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for growing with us this year. We can’t wait to share the year ahead with you all.

Xoxo, Quinn