When Leah Samura left her job in 2019 to open a cannabis business in Harvard Square, she didn’t know it would be five years before her shop — Yamba Boutique — opened its doors.
Yamba Boutique opened Sunday on Church Street, making it the latest entrant to the Cambridge cannabis market, alongside Western Front, Herbwell, Kush Groove, Blue River, and a sister Yamba location in Central Square.
The dispensaries have opened at a time when states across the country have increasingly warmed up to legal cannabis, both answering demands from activists to reverse what they see as overbearing and discriminatory laws and hoping to take advantage of a lucrative source of tax revenue.
Since legalizing marijuana for adult recreational use in 2018, Massachusetts has seen nearly $6 billion in recreational marijuana sales.
But to some, Cambridge has failed to capitalize on this momentum.
When the city first established the permitting process for the newly legalized marijuana industry in 2018, it stipulated that from September 2019 to September 2021, only “Economic Empowerment” applicants could be considered for permits.
To qualify, prospective cannabis purveyors had to meet certain criteria laid out by the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, such as being from an area disproportionately affected by the war