TINA L. SCOTT
EDITOR
The 710 Smoke Shop in Merrill opened its doors in the lower unit of an apartment building in the 200 block of E. Second St. on June 1, 2021 and held a Grand Opening celebration on July 10, 2021.
Then, less than six months after opening the business, disaster struck: an unexpected fire that started in the stairwell to the apartment above the business in the wee hours of Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2021, threatened to put them out of business just as quickly as they had launched their new venture.
Once the fire was out, owner and sole proprietor John Aumend waited for word from his landlord and the insurance company as to what would become of his shop.
He soon learned he would need to vacate the premises, and that left Aumend looking for a new place to set up shop. As luck would have it, he learned of a retail space that was being vacated about that time, connected with the landlord, and has since leased 110 N. Prospect St., Suite #1, in Merrill where he has been running his retail store. It is a work in progress, Aumend said, as he gets his display cases set up the way he wants them and renovates the property to better reflect his brand, rather than that of the previous tenant [a clothing boutique], and his personal style.
What it is and what it isn’t
Contrary to what one might think based on the name of the business, The 710 Smoke Shop isn’t a place to buy cigarettes, tobacco, or cigars. Rather, the business sells vaping products, cartridges, cartridge batteries, vaporizers, trays, water pipes, glassware, rolling papers, oils, hemp and hemp-derived products, and a wide variety of similar products. “For tobacco use only” is their disclaimer, as some of these products might also be used for smoking marijuana which is not legal in Wisconsin, though it is legal in nearby Michigan and Illinois for both recreational and medical use.
Dreams and plans change and evolve, and all roads led to here
“I’ve always wanted to own my own retail location,” Aumend said. “But in my head, it was a shoe store. I managed at a few shoe stores early in life and have always been a little bit of a shoe fanatic.”
“However, after my release from prison in 2010, I started working in the kitchen at Applebees,” he said, “and ended up with the company for 10 years as an extension of the training department.”
Close to three years ago, “I went through, and am dealing with the fallouts of, a pretty nasty divorce and separation in which I left my job of 10 years and lost absolutely every penny and every piece of personal belongings I had,” Aumend said.
His plan was to go back into the service industry due to his experience there and lack of experience elsewhere, “mixed with my criminal record,” he said. “I always felt that may be my best and only option.”
“Then I went to Colorado, slipped on some ice, and ended up stuck in a bed for months and had a limp for about a year afterwards,” Aumend said.
“At that point, I didn’t think that I would be able to go put 10 to 16 hours a day on my legs in a restaurant, so I started brainstorming and doing research.”
“I had started smoking weed again right before my separation, after not smoking for almost 15 years. Smoking helped me unintentionally overcome a pill habit, so I turned into a heavy smoker and frequented all the shops around and would make it a point to stop at new ones when I traveled,” he said.
“It’s obviously something that I enjoyed, so I looked into it, and the standard rule in the industry is to double what you paid for something [wholesale price x 2 = retail price] and put it on the shelf.”
“To my knowledge, there aren’t many industries where you are almost guaranteed to double your money on your products, so it was an easy decision from there,” he said.
“Doing further research, we have found that as [marijuana] prohibition slowly ends across the country, in every legal state, a couple years after legalization, the glass industry booms.” Aumend currently carries several lines of glass products in his shop.
“I guess you could say that since my criminal record will put me out of play for owning a [marijuana] dispensary at some point, I’ll settle for being the guy selling the gold miners picks and shovels during the gold rush, so to speak,” Aumend said.
“For now, there are loopholes and grey areas in the hemp laws, and we are going to remain 100% compliant, but we have spoken with the City, and we have every intent to take advantage of those loopholes until they change.”
Business is doing better than expected
“The 710 is doing amazing and way better than expected this early in the game, especially considering we’ve moved locations six months into doing business,” Aumend said.
“You would never know by looking at our sales trends.”
“I think we only did a couple hundred dollars in sales the first couple months,” he said, but not long after moving to his new location, he had $15,000 in sales three months consecutively.
“The Merrill community has really welcomed us with open arms,” Aumend said. “We have a ton of regular customers that frequent the place, and those who aren’t in often are happy that we’re saving them a 30-minute drive to Wausau.”
“So far it seems to be a very beneficial relationship for both us and the Merrill community,” he said.
A laid back kind of business
“I think at least one of my favorite things about running this business, in particular, is that people expect us to be laid back and comfortable,” Aumend said. “There is no fake customer service smile or voice with us. We legit get to wake up everyday, dress however we want, and then go sit around and talk to people about getting high all day.”
“Its not exactly a high stress environment, and if we don’t know something, we can simply say that,” he said.
“I don’t know that there is anything special about our store other than the fact that we are the first ones to do it in Merrill without trying to be quiet about it,” Aumend said.
“We understand that there are some criticisms and other things surrounding the industry, so we really believe that if we’re the first ones to do it in the area, we treat people right so they know we’re doing good business, and we do it all through the right channels and remain compliant, then the sky is truly the limit for us as a business.”
Of course, every business has some challenges
“The hardest thing is the constant updating and changing rules and regulations around the tobacco, vape, hemp, and cannabis laws,” Aumend said when asked about the most challenging thing of running his business.
And “the shipping companies’ constant modifications to keep up and our adjustments to those, along with staying familiar with the ever-changing Pact ACT,” he said.
Regardless of the challenges, Aumend is focused on maintaining and growing a steady business for the present and with an eye toward the future, and his business filled a vacant storefront on Prospect St. where he felt welcome. He’s happy to be building his life and his business in the Merrill community.