Girl Scouts rack up cookie sales outside marijuana dispensary
Talk about smoking the competition.
Sisters Aurora and Eden Ray not only sold more than 100 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies on Friday, they did something maybe no other Oregon Girl Scouts have ever done: sell the organization’s famous Samoas, Thin Mints, Tagalongs and other cookies outside a medical marijuana dispensary.
“It’s actually great to sell here at this place because none of our Girl Scouts have done this before,” said Aurora, 11, standing Friday afternoon with her sister and parents, Ralph and Belinda Ray, outside the Oregon Microgrowers Guild on Cross Street in Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood.
“We’re hoping to show people that we’re just trying to make a difference and help people and stuff,” Aurora said.
Belinda Ray said she got the idea after a San Francisco girl made national news last year, and again last month, for selling Girl Scout Cookies outside a medical marijuana shop there.
“We have a lot of different ideas, but this one got publicized,” Ray said with a laugh on Thursday by phone.
Danielle Lei, the San Francisco Girl Scout, sold 117 boxes in two hours outside the Green Cross marijuana store in February 2014. Lei, now 14, did it again last month, this time smashing her record by selling 208 boxes in two hours, according to multiple media reports.
Aurora and Eden sold 106 boxes ($424 worth at $4 a box) in just under four hours on Friday.
Members of local Girl Scout Troop 20248, they are selling the cookies to raise money to buy materials to make quilts for foster children, nursing home residents and babies whose mothers can’t afford quilts, Aurora said.
They started selling cookies on Feb. 23 — usually outside stores such as Albertsons, Safeway and Fred Meyer — and have until March 15 to reach their goal of 1,500 boxes. They’ve now sold more than 600.
Sharon Giles, a regular customer of the Oregon Microgrower’s Guild, said she suffers from degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia and has had five back surgeries and several fusions. She slowly approached the girls just before 4 p.m., starting things off with a bang by requesting an entire case — 12 boxes — of cookies.
“Mom, how much is a case?” Aurora hollered.
“$48,” Belinda Ray said.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” said Giles, who was a Girl Scout while growing up in Hillsboro in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. “They know what they’re doing,” she said of the girls.
Giles said she spent 12 years taking 240 milligrams a day of oxycodone. About four months ago, she decided to quit the narcotic and try medical marijuana, she said.
She takes a tincture of liquid marijuana sublingually (under the tongue) each day.
“It’s been working amazingly,” Giles said.
The tinctures contain cannabidiol, or CBD, an active ingredient in marijuana, but not THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, the principal psychoactive ingredient in the drug, Giles said.
Thus, the drug does not stimulate her appetite — and make her crave, say, Girl Scout Cookies — as marijuana is renowned for, she said.
“Not every strain causes you to be hungry,” said dispensary co-owner Debra Grosella, sitting in a waiting room at her business, the pungent smell of marijuana filling the old house, before the girls and their parents arrived. “It’s like roses, there’s so many different strains of roses. It’s the same with cannabis.”
Grosella said she was thrilled when Belinda Ray contacted her, because Grosella was a Girl Scout between the ages of 6 and 13 while growing up outside of Philadelphia.
“I was very excited,” said Grosella. “I think it’s great. I don’t think there’s any difference with them selling in front of a Walgreens and in front of our business.”
Sarah Miller, a Portland-based spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts of Oregon and Southwest Washington, which has on office in Eugene, said the organization doesn’t keep a list of prohibited locations for cookie booths.
“Ultimately, it’s a choice for parents and guardians and their girls,” Miller said. But the organization asks parents to consider three things when deciding when and where to sell the cookies.
Is this location an appropriate place for children?
Is this location in line with the Girl Scout Promise and Law?
By selling at this location, are we abiding by our council’s policies and procedures and applicable laws?
Parents do have to inform their troops where they intend to sell and register that information online, Miller said, so that they don’t end up selling at the same time and place as girls from another troop.
Belinda Ray said she did that but got a call from her girls’ troop leader Friday expressing concern about selling the cookies at the marijuana business.
Patricia Hutchings, a representative from the Girl Scouts’ Eugene office, arrived at the Rays’ location some time after 4 p.m. Friday. Hutchings said she just wanted to make sure the girls “felt supported” at Grosella’s business.
Asked how she felt about the girls selling there, Hutchings said: “I support what the girls are doing, but that’s the only thing I support.”
“Sadly, it would be nice if you were getting attention for being Girl Scouts and not this,” Hutchings told Belinda Ray.
Grosella said: “I’m kind of of the opinion that if the Girl Scouts are against what we’re doing, then they don’t know what we’re doing.”
She said Giles was a “perfect example” of the good that medical marijuana businesses do.
“Would you like to learn a little about our business?” Grosella asked Hutchings.
“I can’t, hon,” Hutchings said.
“Can I talk to you Girl Scout to Girl Scout?” Grosella asked.
“I can’t,” Hutchings said. “I’m just a representative.”
Grosella said she would write a letter to the Girl Scouts to express her displeasure.
“One of the things I learned in Girl Scouts was respect,” Grosella said. “That was disappointing to me. I’m a business owner.”
Don Shields, who lives next door to Grosella’s business, where he is a self-employed restorer of classic automobiles, came over and bought a box of Tagalongs.
“Of course,” Shields said when asked if he approved of what the girls and their parents were doing. “This is a business. Why wouldn’t you be able to sell at any business?
Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkBakerRG . Emailmark.baker@registerguard.com .
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