Three security guards, dressed in military fatigues, screen customers as they pass through a metal detector.
The store, which has the air of a high-end boutique, was robbed again in late November, its shelves cleared and the floor speckled with blood from where the thieves had cut their hands on all the smashed glass.
Mr. Blunt is among the entrepreneurs in Oakland, many of whom are Black, who were granted equity licenses to run cannabis businesses after California legalized the substance for recreational use in 2016.
But there has also been a push by lawmakers in states like California, Illinois and New Jersey to ensure that those same communities can profit from the legalized industry, which has been largely dominated by white owners, some of whom have made a fortune on cannabis.
Oakland was one of the first cities to prioritize equity licenses for those like Mr. Blunt, 42, who got teased in high school because his name is a common term for a cannabis cigar.
That means cannabis stores are limited in their access to federally regulated banking services, such as credit cards.
Some say the police in Oakland, at times, have not switched their mind-set from arresting cannabis dealers to protecting their legal businesses.
“While not a panacea, this program is a meaningful step toward embedding fairness and justice in all we do to improve conditions for communities of color,” Greg Minor, an assistant to the city administrator, said in an email.
Keith Stephenson, 53, is a former aviation maintenance technician who is originally from South Los Angeles.
His goal has long been to own a publicly traded cannabis company.
When Mr. Stephenson started his business, there were few of the generous loans or rent subsidies that the city’s equity initiative now provides.
Business was rough at first.
The state and city impose steep taxes — which can total more than 30 percent of each sale.
On May 29, 2020, Mr. Stephenson was watching the news about the murder of George Floyd when he looked at footage from his store’s security camera on his phone.
Over the next few days, a band of thieves returned and ransacked the store, stealing everything they could.
“It is my belief he would not have said that if I was a white male,” he said.
Only a limited number of insurance companies are willing to cover the cannabis industry, she added, because of the federal prohibition, and the few insurers operating in the sector are still trying to understand the “unique risk” that the businesses pose.
In the early hours of Nov.
The robbers broke through the first door easily, security footage showed, then a second door and a third.
Mr. Joyner, who now works as a security consultant to cannabis businesses, said the police needed to adjust their attitudes.
“If this happened to Bank of America, the police would have a more robust response,” said Mr. Joyner, who was nearly killed in a shootout with robbers at an Oakland gas station in late October.
When a client transports cannabis from a warehouse to a store, the company’s guards, some of whom are veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, block off city streets to prevent ambushes.
About 71 percent of those arrested on suspicion of cannabis offenses in Oakland between 1995 and 2015 were Black, according to an analysis by the city.
Mr. Blunt, who started selling cannabis to his co-workers at a grocery store when he was 16, also remembers being surrounded that day by representatives from established cannabis companies looking to be his partner.
But he didn’t have the money needed to start a licensed business.
The bigger problem, he said, was that one of his partners, who oversaw the books, stopped paying taxes and vendors.
But then, a few days before Thanksgiving, Mr. Blunt’s store was robbed for the second time in 18 months.