I won a mountain bike once.
They were giving it away at McDonald's for Christmas, so I filled out an entry slip while I was waiting for my McDoubles, and I got a call a week or so later. It was pretty cool to win a free bike. It was a cheap bike, though, and I eventually sold it for $50. Until this past week, when I went to the Bloom dispensary on Oracle Road, it was the coolest thing a store ever gave me.
Then at Bloom, which until recently was Rainbow, I got a free eighth of top-shelf meds.
They give one to every new patient. The ad is right there in this newspaper, in multiple colors with words and everything. The words say something to the effect of "Free Eighth for New Patients. No Purchase Necessary." (Emphasis and random marketing capitalization mine.) Now, you might think they would be giving away schwag, but that isn't the case. It was an eighth of my choosing, with my emphasis added again, because that's kind of amazing. I am not going to lie. Bloom has earned a huge amount of good will though the simple act of giving Mr. Smith free weed.
But lest you think I have been bought, I will say that I find Bloom a tad stuffy for my taste. Not that the people are stuffy. They're exceptionally friendly, and they're attractive and well groomed. So is Bloom, which is why it isn't quite my bag of meds. It's a little upscaly and slick, with seemingly a place for everything and everything in its place. It felt a little like Best Buy. Their meds are prepackaged, which makes one wonder when they were packaged. The eighth I bought was labeled "Rainbow," which suggests it was lying around for a while. The staff there wears uniforms. Meh.
Bloom, which is across Oracle Road from Tucson Mall, took over both of Rainbow's dispensaries (they also now manage the Prime Leaf on Speedway). Don't confuse Bloom's shops with Desert Bloom Re-Leaf Center, a much more laid-back and casual dispensary on East 22nd Street. They are not connected.
There's no buzzer to get into the lobby at Bloom, which is how it should be, and the new-patient paperwork is one page, which is also how it should be. It might have been the shortest packet of dispensary papers I've filled out. The wait wasn't long, because there was no crowd. I think patients are beginning to expect zero wait times at dispensaries. It's rare to see a line.
Bloom had about eight strains the day I was there, including a Sour Kush that tested at 24 percent (!) THC. That's among the highest THC content I've seen locally, so I grabbed 3.5 delicious grams of the stuff for free. I don't do strain reviews (although I do like their Sour Kush), but I have to ding Bloom on bag appeal. Their meds weren't trimmed well. A friend of mine trimmed my eighth and hers, and pulled a fat joint out of the kush. Yay, free eighth. Boo, half a gram of trim.
Overall, I give Bloom good marks for doing what they do. They have decent prices (see their menu at bloomdispensary.com/tucson) and you can preorder online to make your stop quicker. It's slightly on the upscale side, über-clean and efficient, and seems like a tightly run ship, if you like that kind of thing.
Mr. Smith approves.
