Market Daze, Oakland’s first city-permitted cannabis festival, will take place this Labor Day weekend at Frank Ogawa Plaza.
Oakland-based retailers such as Harborside, Korova, and Blunts + More will sell an array of cannabis products, and attendees will be able to sample their merchandise akin to a wine tasting.
The event is being held in conjunction with Hiero Day, an annual concert hosted by local music collective Hieroglyphics.
Tajai Massey, recording artist and partner at Hieroglyphics Emporium, told The Oaklandside that Hieroglyphics decided to reach out to Yi after realizing Hiero Day wouldn’t happen this year in its pre-pandemic model.
Hiero Day events will include a listening party at Moxy in Uptown from 4-8 p.m, a movie screening at 409 13th St.
Smoakland isn’t the first group to attempt hosting a permitted cannabis event in Oakland, but they are the first to successfully pull it off.
Yi initially looked into hosting the event at a bar or restaurant, but the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control prohibits vendors from selling cannabis and alcohol together.
In 2016, Harborside reached a deal with federal prosecutors after a years-long attempt beginning in the early 2010s to shut the dispensary down.
Rodas, who is Salvadoran American and bilingual, is on The Oaklandside team through a partnership with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.