You see the trucks around all the time. Old-school hunter-green delivery trucks delivering the goods for a company with the entirely old-school name: Brookline Ice & Coal. These days, of course, most of the goods those trucks deliver are ice, rather than coal. Ice for parties. Ice for bars. Bags of ice sold in convenience stores. Dry ice. Ice sculptures. But I like seeing their trucks – and passing their HQ when I’m heading out to my sister Kath’s in Brookline.
Coal…
Not much used in these parts, these days. I believe our coal-fired electric plants have all gone bye-bye. I’m guessing the only use of coal locally is in coal-fired pizza restaurants.
I am, of course, old enough to remember coal.
We lived in my grandmother’s three-family house when I was a kid, and each of the flats had a coal-burning furnace, and its very own personal little coal storage room, in the cellar. And I remember the coal trucks making their deliveries, the rattle of the coal as it shuttled down the chute. It wasn’t delivered by Brookline Coal & Ice. We were in Worcester. Coal came from Claflin-Sumner.
Anyway, the sounds of winter when I was a small child were coal rattling down the chutes, and my father shoveling coal into the furnace and slamming the furnace door – a gate to hell – shut. (That and the chink of chains on the trucks and buses as they drove down the street during ice and snow.)
Coal was really good for one thing: eyes, mouth and buttons for snowmen. Rocks were an okay substitute, but there was nothing like coal. I always feel a bit bad when I see those snowman-making kits that include the little black fake coal pieces (and, god help us, a plastic carrot for the nose).
I remember when those furnaces were converted from coal to oil.
Why these thoughts of coal during the dog days of August?
They were prompted by an article in The Globe on a scion of the Brookline Ice & Coal fortune:
Mario Signore plans to lease a family-owned lot in Boston’s Newmarket Industrial District to build a marijuana growing and processing facility, called Green Line Boston. The goal is to create a Boston brand of locally grown cannabis.
“I saw this as an opportunity to come back and build something,” said the 43-year-old Signore. “I want to create the Sam Adams of cannabis.” (Source: Boston Globe)
First off, props for the name Green Line Boston, given that Brookline is on the T’s Green Line. Love it. And as for the “Sam Adams of cannabis,” well, gotta love that, too. I am, of course, assume he’s talking about Sam Adams the beer and not Sam Adams the patriot. Or maybe it’s both. In any case, I for one am looking forward to the emergence of the pot industry.
I’m pretty sure that at some point I’ll stop in at a modern-day head shop and get me a small baggy. I can’t remember the last time I rolled a J. Certainly, more than 40 years ago. Is it like riding a bicycle? I’ll know what to do with the Zig Zag papers the minute I have them in hand?
My purchase and use may well turn out to be a one-shot, relived youth event until I’m in need of medical marijuana. Still, I can see being a customer of Green Line.
Signore’s Sam Adams ambitions call for creating Boston’s first “pot cultivation complex,” and for hiring 30-40 individuals to work there. He’s looking for investment money, and:
He still has several [other] hurdles to clear.
Signore plans to make his pitch at a community meeting on Wednesday night at the Hampton Inn, in the Crosstown Center.
He needs to negotiate a host community agreement with Boston, and obtain a zoning permit and approval from the Boston Planning & Development Agency.
He’ll also need a license from the state Cannabis Control Commission.
If successful, Signore expects it will take about a year to build the new facility.
Signore said nearby business managers and residents tell him they appreciate that he doesn’t plan to offer retail sales. Helping his case: city rules require a half-mile buffer around pot businesses, which would exclude others, including marijuana dispensaries, from moving in nearby.
Well, they’ll be selling it somewhere. Maybe in the bars that use Brookline Ice, the convenience stores that sell bags of Brookline Ice?
Meanwhile, I’ve got a suggestion for Mario Signore. Why not use the same color scheme, font and logo as the family biz?
It’s already got the green thing going….You can’t see the logo here, but it’s a sort of stylized snowman holding a shovel. Go for it, Mario!
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