Los Angeles has no scarcity of dispensaries. Each neighborhood has one—or three—and most promise the identical mixture of premium flower, polished interiors and loyalty factors. The Power, in El Sereno, has managed to face aside by leaning on one thing that may’t be manufactured: historical past.
For many years, “The Power” has meant high-grade California weed. The title was embedded in Nineties hip-hop and LA road life lengthy earlier than the plant was authorized. When founder Orlando Padilla opened his ivy-covered flagship slightly greater than two years in the past, he constructed the idea round that legacy. “The mission was clear: construct one thing for the individuals, by the individuals,” he says. “Hashish and tradition have all the time been intertwined—we simply introduced that fact into the trendy area.”
The store sits quietly on Alhambra Avenue, its black-and-gold signage a deliberate nod to LA’s streetwear and hip-hop lineage. The design is minimal however intentional: Greenery softens the darkish facade; inside, heat gentle and gold accents give the area a straightforward confidence. It’s top-tier with out being uptight. Prospects come from the encompassing neighborhood and throughout town, drawn by phrase of mouth and the shop’s mixture of accessibility and polish.
Padilla insists that the tradition comes first. “We didn’t simply construct a dispensary,” he says. “We constructed one thing that represents hashish tradition.” His group is generally native, and that sense of neighborhood, he says, shapes each the environment and the service. “We deal with prospects like household as a result of that’s how we need to be handled—we’re from the neighborhoods we serve.”
The Power’s ambitions attain past retail. Padilla is creating Power Genetics, an in-house line of proprietary strains, alongside a forthcoming branded assortment of flower, vapes and edibles. A streetwear label, coded into the shop’s black-and-gold aesthetic, is within the works. Padilla says the corporate plans to host cultural occasions and collaborations with native artists and artistic varieties. “The Power has all the time stood for high-quality hashish and the tradition surrounding it,” he says. “We’re simply exhibiting what that legacy appears like in in the present day’s authorized world,” he provides of his life-style empire ambitions.
That legacy is difficult in a market as aggressive as Los Angeles. The town’s hashish retail panorama is saturated, and even well-known retailers battle to keep up relevance as rules, taxes and new manufacturers flood the area. Padilla says The Power’s benefit is authenticity—its roots in a neighborhood that understands hashish as greater than a product.
“Skilled doesn’t need to imply company,” he says. “You may set a excessive commonplace and nonetheless preserve it actual.”
The Power has quickly constructed a loyal following and a recognizable aesthetic with out shedding its neighborhood really feel. It hasn’t reinvented SoCal hashish a lot as reminded individuals what it’s speculated to really feel like: private and grounded in tradition. In a metropolis that always treats hashish as vogue, The Power’s success means that the previous guidelines—connection, respect and good weed—nonetheless would possibly work.
