Meet Kelsy Yates | Co-owner & co-founder of Police & Thieves Dispensaries

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelsy Yates and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelsy, how do you think about risk?
I think that anyone in cannabis must be comfortable with risk. Continually erratic market fluctuations, Kafkaesque legislation, and an untraditional work context are attached to the weed industry. There’s no getting around it. While my husband and I, who wholly own and run the company, have a decent level of structure and routine to our lives so that we can stay somewhat sane while we raise our children and run a company, we both are comfortable in certain level of chaos. That being said, just about every decision we made was met with some level of critique from certain industry people. Police & Thieves, from our name, to our ethos, to our aesthetics, has played heavily in risk, in challenging the norms of the marijuana industry. Police & Thieves takes pride in creating different paths and challenging calcified beliefs, and I believe strongly in our path.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Police & Thieves is a 100% queer woman and Latino owned company. We provide the restless connoisseur with highly curated marijuana goods. Police & Thieves separates from other dispensaries by being fastidious in every aspect of our business. We have streetwear, and customers are amazed at the thickness of the fabric and the lushness of design. Our dispensaries were painted by muralists from Mexico, local artists who had done much work in their country but never in the USA. The interiors of our stores were designed by a New York firm. Our flower and cannabis inventory can stand with anyone in Colorado. We take pride in aspect of our business, and when there are some challenges, such as time or money or any of the myriad of issues in marijuana, we ruminate and develop a creative answer. It has been what we have done time and time again. Also, we are a family owned business, my husband and I are the only owners, so this business means so much to us. We make sure that care shows in our stores and service.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My ideal weekend with a friend would be in winter where we would first stop at Police & Thieves and pick up some motivation, and maybe sweatshirt so that my friend can move around Denver in style. Then we would go to either Stowaway Kitchen for a light breakfast and tea or La Fillette for the best croissants in town. Afterwards we would head up to Vail to ski for a few days. Two of my other favorite local spots to eat are Uchi and Mercantile.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
What a wonderful notion. I’d like to thank my family, who as a unit help run Police & Thieves, whether it be my husband who I directly work with in the company or our children, who are patient during phone calls that stretch into dinnertime. I’d also like to really send appreciation to our team. They work very hard and are all wonderful people. Specifically, a lot of love to Jesse and J.T.—those two are rockstars. I’d also like to thank all of our partners, iion cannabis, Indico Cannabis, and Vera Cultivation, in particular, with which we have close business ties and who make up the flower in our “housebrand.” Police & Thieves takes very seriously our partnerships.

Website: https://policeandthieves.com

Instagram: policeandthievesco

Image Credits
Ian Warren (building and interior photos)
Shadi Perez (Kelsy & David photo)
William Avent (Police & Thieves ethos graphic photo)