In the world of cannabis, more than a decade of experience in the business is a remarkable achievement. Peou “Bo” Sea (pronounced “Say”) founded and opened the Brothers Cannabis Club in April 2010.

The new Seaside Outlet Mall location at 1111 N. Roosevelt Drive, at the site of the former CBD store, is the fourth statewide. Brothers Cannabis serves three Portland locations — in the Sellwood, Richmond and Buckman areas — to both medical patients and recreational consumers.

Sea, 42, grew up in southeast Portland. He went to school in Seattle before returning to Portland, working primarily in the restaurant industry. When he saw medical cannabis dispensaries opening up, “we opened up too.”

It was a time when the federal government sent cease-and-desist letters to dispensary owners. Despite federal pressure, with backing from state and local authorities, he remained confident in success.

“There were no real dispensaries,” he said. “Washington had medical like us — they didn’t have stores. It was on the down-low.”

There was little advertising or promotion, “just a community of medical patients,” he said.

The market expanded with the legalization of recreational cannabis sales six years later.

“The advantage we had was we started around 2010 and it didn’t get legal till 2016,” he said. “I had about five or six years of just having my name there. I wasn’t making money at all — just my name being there for five, six years. Once we opened, I had a long line.”

Sea is no stranger to Seaside; he has been coming here for vacations since he was a kid. He said he hopes to find a house here for himself and his family.

While he doesn’t know the owners of the other local dispensaries, he said people in the business help each other out.

“We’re not really cutthroat,” he said. “With almost any owner that I meet, I can almost connect with them right away. We already almost got this kind of vibe. We’re happy to help each other out.”

Sea operated the Seaside location as CBD Hemp Store Outlet before opening as a cannabis dispensary. “When I first had the CBD store, it did pretty well,” he said.

But when the pandemic hit and with grocery and variety stores carrying CBD products, Sea sought to pivot, becoming the first cannabis dispensary in the outlet mall. The dispensary still carries CBD products, and he recommends them to people who want the effects without the euphoric high of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

Sea has three employees, all of whom worked at the CBD hemp store.

They are getting hands-on training, he said. “They’ve been selling CBD so they’re pretty good. Right now I’m just fortunate to have them as my employees. They know what to do and they’re ready pretty much from CBD to dispensary. So it’s pretty easy for them to transition.”

Brothers will sell a “lot of high-end flower,” he said, featuring premium flower buds from Portland.

“Our customers are the connoisseurs as well as the budget shoppers, people that need it every day, people that smoke weed once in a while,” he said. “We have specialty products we try to get in not a lot people may not have. We probably have the best price on glass in town, our smoking apparatus.”

Pricing is very important, he added. “Older stores like mine may have better pricing just because we’ve been around so long working with these farms. That’s the big advantage we will have over a lot of new stores is: No. 1, customer service, No. 2, our products. We’ve got our customer service down really well and we only keep the best products.”

Business hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; 503-739-7217.