Mellow Fellows Vice President Charles F. Emery addressed the Haverhill City Council on Aug. 20, 2019. (WHAV News file photograph.)
When Haverhill-based Mellow Fellows opens its adult-use marijuana store late this summer, it could earn more than $1 million a month.
According to the company’s lawyer, this potential has attracted two more investors. Attorney Jim Smith told WHAV that Mellow Fellows, owned by Charles Emery, Timothy Riley and E. Phillip Brown, will receive investments from two more businesses. A principal of one of them, Arthur Becker, became the store’s landlord Friday. Smith said negotiations with a second unnamed investor are still in the works.
Smith added, “Pretty much every cannabis company that opens has investors. There’s no banks. No way to borrow money…The Mellow Fellows are the epitome of regular gentlemen. They don’t have that kind of money.”
The new investors will be disclosed in a filing with the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.
As WHAV reported Tuesday, Becker’s Mass Prop Invest bought the 330 Amesbury Road, Haverhill, property Friday for $1.35 million. The Amesbury Road building was built as a restaurant in 1982 and is currently appraised by the city at $397,900. It sold was to Mac & D Realty, operated by Kathleen Darby and her brother, City Councilor Michael S. McGonagle, for $605,000 in March of 2019. Smith said it is not uncommon for real estate prices to rise once a marijuana retail permit has been granted.
He also described the transaction as routine, saying, “It was really expected from the beginning. There’s no effect at all on the Mellow Fellows. They were tenants yesterday and they will still be tenants tomorrow.”
In August of 2019, seven Haverhill city councilors approved a special permit for the business. Councilor Joseph J. Bevilacqua voted against it and McGonagle abstained given his status as the landlord.