Longtime Dispensary Chain Sells All Six Colorado Stores

Terrapin Care Station, a longtime dispensary chain based in Boulder, is selling off all of its Colorado stores as marijuana sales fail to rebound in the state.

Founded in 2009 as a medical marijuana dispensary, Terrapin quickly grew to six locations in Boulder, Aurora, Longmont and Denver after recreational pot sales began in January 2014. The ownership group, led by founder Chris Woods, created a vertically integrated marijuana business, with internal cultivations and an extraction lab brand.

Terrapin was also politically active online through a now-defunct cannabis news website, voter registration drives at stores, and at the Colorado State Capitol, where it was an influential force behind a 2019 bill that created marijuana hospitality licenses.

After a slow and steady decline in marijuana revenue, however, Colorado has looked less and less attractive to larger players, including Terrapin. The company has shut down its in-house production lines and is now shedding all six of its stores in Colorado.

Most of those stores will remain branded as Terrapin Care Stations under different ownership; Sun Theory Holding Co., a marijuana ownership group based in Salida, has bought five of Terrapin's dispensaries. Meanwhile, the Aurora store and an attached cultivation at 11900 East 33rd Avenue were purchased by Best Buds, a new dispensary chain with stores in Aurora and Denver.

Terrapin will now concentrate on business operations in Pennsylvania, where it produces marijuana flower, extracts, edibles and infused products for medical dispensaries, according to the company, with licensing and ownership transfers with Sun Theory taking place "over the next few weeks."

Although the original Terrapin group's licenses are no longer active in Colorado, headquarters will remain in Boulder.

“Terrapin’s legacy will always be rooted in Colorado. We will look back fondly on the past fifteen years as a foundational time trailblazing what has become a global industry,” founder Woods says in a statement announcing the sale. “We’re thrilled that these new partnerships allow Terrapin’s legacy to live on in the state, and we’re very much looking forward to our next era in this industry focused on expanded cannabis reform in Pennsylvania. This isn’t goodbye for Terrapin as a company; we’re simply announcing a new chapter.”

Selling weed in Colorado doesn't have the allure it once did. After increasing for seven straight years to a record $2.2 billion in 2021, annual marijuana sales have been falling in Colorado, hitting just over $1.5 billion for 2023.

Record-low wholesale prices, a long list of business closures and a 30 percent decline in employment have also hit marijuana businesses during that span, while state data shows that the number of recreational marijuana growing licenses fell over 21 percent from December 2022 through December 2023.

Terrapin is just the latest marijuana company to leave Colorado for greener pastures. Late last year, longtime edibles brand Coda Signature, also founded in Boulder, exited Colorado, with the company saying it was now focusing on other markets. 1906, another large and established edibles brand based in Boulder, made a similar move in February, shutting down operations in Colorado and focusing on sales on the East Coast and in the Midwest as well as the brand's hemp-derived cannabinoid products, which are sold online.

As marijuana brands leave Colorado, though, Sun Theory has been ready and willing to acquire them. In 2023, Sun Theory bought Roots RX, a chain of six mountain town dispensaries, as well as popular rosin edibles manufacturer Dialed In and dispensaries in Salida and Durango. But the Terrapin stores will be Sun Theory's first metro Denver dispensaries.

“Terrapin Care Station has been a longtime leader in Colorado’s cannabis industry, whose history of innovation and commitment to customers and community is legendary,” Sun Theory CEO Connor Oman says. “This acquisition is a perfect complement to Sun Theory’s existing portfolio, which is focused squarely on businesses driven to deliver next-generation products and retail experiences cannabis consumers increasingly demand today.”