Gay weed activist and dispensary owner ready to hand the torch
Flore owner Terrance Al Photo: Screenshot California State Fair
In 2021, Terrance Alan celebrated the long-anticipated opening of Flore, a well-appointed cannabis dispensary just across the street from the legendary and now-closed Castro hangout Cafe Flore, a victim of the COVID pandemic.
Thirty years earlier, at the height of another devastating health crisis, Alan was a regular at Cafe Flore with his husband, who was HIV positive and slowly succumbing to the effects of the disease.
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“Cafe Flore was a stop on the underground railway line for experimental HIV drugs, and my husband and I would go and hang out,” Alan explained in an interview with Greenstate. “And people would come and tell us about this, that and the other.” Of course, nothing worked, but at least we generated a little bit of hope every time we tried something.”
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At the same time, cannabis was providing relief that conventional therapies couldn’t, and illicit grows were popping up all over San Francisco.
So Alan joined a wave of indoor growers dialing in lighting, temperature, humidity and everything else to make cannabis happy absent the sun. Over time, he helped cultivators across the city with set-ups for HIV-positive patients like his husband.
It wasn’t without risk.
One night, the couple woke up to a SWAT team at the door of their warehouse home in search of his grow room — he was arrested in possession of 120 plants.
According to Alan, he was accused of being a part of “Dennis Peron’s gay weed mafia.”
Peron was a legendary figure in both the LGBTQ+ and cannabis communities as an early proponent of medical cannabis in service of AIDS patients. After serving in Vietnam, he came to San Francisco and organized “smoke ins” in the city. He was an early supporter of slain Supervisor Harvey Milk, and when the AIDS crisis struck he was selling illicit weed out of Castro Street storefronts.
The day after Alan’s arrest, Peron showed up at his door. Alan’s evolution as an activist began after another SFPD bust. This time the cops showed up to a New Year’s Party Alan threw in 1995 in honor of his late husband.
“They were not happy,” Alan said of the cops called to one last bust just after four in the morning. “And they showed their unhappiness by taking my drag queen, transgender, and differently attired guests who were at my event and showing them off by making fun of them in front of the other police officers.”
Twenty-eight people were arrested and thrown in the drunk tank.
That confrontation with police, “over a memorial for my husband who just died,” was the moment that cemented Alan as an activist, he said.
One result was the San Francisco Late Night Coalition, which advocated for city entertainment and permit reform and led to the formation the San Francisco Entertainment Commission, now a crucial city regulatory body.
Another was Alan’s cannabis advocacy: he pushed for legalization in different forums and was serving as chair of the San Francisco State Cannabis Legalization Task Force when Prop 64, the initiative that legalized recreational cannabis in California, was passed in 2016.
His Castro cannabis outpost, Flore, soon followed, and the activist still has the small cultivators at the top of his mind.
“The deck is stacked against the small operator, the small farmer, and the legacy farmer,” Alan explained. The dollar is the most powerful tool for consumers. If they do not spend their dollars at stores on products that are well grown, well packaged, and well presented, then that part of the industry will not survive.”
From his perch in the purple-hued Flore storefront, Alan is now focused on passing his legacy — and Peron’s — onto the next generation of politically minded advocates.
“I’m at the stage where I would like to empower young activists,” Alan shared. “I am not the activist any more.” I am the Dennis Peron knocking on your door, teaching you to be an activist.”
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