Bear Dance Collective

07/02/2026

No longer a h**p business, but we still have opinions about the new legislation. 😈 Thanks to WSLS 10 for reaching out to interview me today. Always happy to yap!

Technically there is a path for established h**p operators to participate, but realistically that path is a steep climb. It’s like Mount Everest. You not only need to have all your ducks in a row but you also need to be financially secure enough to invest into a space that’s going to require 3-4 times more money than you think it will.
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Small Businesses Prepare for Shift as Recreational Ma*****na Market Takes Shape (by Abbie Coleman)

Virginia’s legal recreational ma*****na market is set to begin July 1, 2027

Virginia’s legal recreational ma*****na market is one year away, but for businesses already selling cannabis products, the transition is happening now.

“We had a dream that there would actually be a sustainable path forward for h**p businesses,” Sarah Vogl, owner of Bear Dance H**p, said.

For nearly seven years, Vogl held onto that hope as the owner of Bear Dance H**p.

But as Virginia moved closer to a legal recreational market, she says it became clear there wouldn’t be a sustainable path for her small business.

“We only recently closed down our retail shop in April,” Vogl said.

The state’s retail ma*****na market is scheduled to open in July of next year, but the first changes arrive much sooner.
“We were already operating in a drastically limited product landscape with the 25-to-1 ratio,” she said.

Starting August 15th, that limit is going even further
Under the old rule, products could exceed two milligrams of THC if they contained 25 times as much CBD.

Now, that exception is going away.

“If you’re relying on cash flow, there’s going to be a whole year gap where you’re not allowed to sell anything. The two-milligram cap is going to come into place. So that basically gets rid of all potential revenue for h**p businesses,” Vogl said.

Virginia’s legal recreational ma*****na market is one year away, but for businesses already selling cannabis products, the transition is happening now.

05/06/2026

Where we are at right now

🚫 No longer selling h**p inventory
🚫 No longer maintaining storefront hours
✅ But we ARE available for virtual appointments (book on our website)

I already completely nuked our old website (with e-commerce) in favor of a nearly blank slate (besides our blog) in preparation for marketing our consultation services. So if you’re confused about what we are even offering now — I AM getting there. 🤝

For now, my focus is: self-care and slowing down after 7 years of fully dedicating myself to the Bear Dance space. So many nights of overtime work at home. So many missed events, vacations, weddings, moments with my family… I need a moment to emotionally recover from what we put ourselves through. 😅

Plus… finding someone to take over our lease. (You want it? You can have it!)

When I AM at the shop, I will post about it ahead of time so you can stop by if you’d like. Remember, though, I DO NOT have a real inventory anymore—just vibes.

I will be offering discounts on remaining miscellaneous non-h**p inventory. (I’ll post more about that later too)

Anyway… once the above is resolved, I have some really exciting new things to share with y’all as we evolve into an ✨ educational resource ✨ rather than a retail business. (IYKYK this is our true calling.)

You know the drill. Follow along, subscribe to emails, and join our fb group. See ya soon

04/23/2026

04/22/2026

We are officially done with retail. Bear Dance will no longer be operating as a retail shop. This wasn’t a quick decision, and it’s not one we took lightly... but it’s the reality of trying to run a compliant gardening business in Virginia right now.

The space isn’t going anywhere just yet… but moving forward, we won’t be carrying inventory, and we’ll be available by appointment only while we figure out what comes next.

And this isn’t the end of Bear Dance either. It’s just the end of this version of it. Just like when we phased out of being a café. (Drop a smoothie or sandwich emoji if you were here for that era lol 🥤🥪)

We still care deeply about plant medicine education, helping people navigate this space, and being part of what comes next in Virginia. That part doesn’t go away just because retail does.

If anything, this space proved something important — that we know wtf we're talking about… and that we’ve been building something real this whole time.

If you want to stop by, catch up, ask questions, or just see the space one more time, reach out and we’ll set something up.

We’re really proud of what we built over the past 6 (almost 7) years, and we’re incredibly grateful for everyone who was part of it.

We’re not quitting — we’re just choosing ourselves instead of continuing to fight a system that no longer works for small businesses like ours.

— Sarah & Chris
Bear Dance

04/20/2026

Going out with a bang ✨

04/19/2026

We tried something a little unconventional and asked for the community to tell us whether they wanted Bear Dance to continue into the next phase of Virginia’s c4nn4b1s industry…

And the honest answer was… It’s too complicated. Which is okay. That’s what we expected. But a lot of people encouraged us to try, and we’re actually really glad we did — because now we have clarity instead of guessing.

So here’s where things stand:

We’re not bringing in new inventory anymore, and we’re going to take a break from retail once it’s gone.

Not only was our attempt to fundraise underwhelming (fair), but Virginia’s new Governor responded to the rec bill in a way I don’t think anyone expected — we knew Spanberger was a fed, but… dang — a full-on prohibitionist angle was not on my bingo card.

Anyway. We’re doing the golden cactus 4/20 event tomorrow — Sunday, 4/19 from 1-4pm — and we’ll be keeping the storefront open for a bit… But we’re not going to keep maintaining inventory anymore. We’re shifting into something different.

The place we’re in is weird. We honestly find ourselves questioning what we did wrong — and while there’s plenty of little things we’ll be kicking ourselves for, the big truth is that Virginia’s gov’t has said loud and clear that they don’t want h3mp businesses like us to transition into the “rec” market. Yet I just keep coming back to the fact that the distinction between h3mp and c4nn4b1s is a construct…

We don’t deserve this, and we have put so much personally and financially into sustaining a break-even, debt-free brick-and-mortar business thus far. Ultimately, I’m really proud of what we’ve maintained for almost 7(!!) years, and nobody can take that satisfaction away from us. As far as small businesses go in general, we had a really good run. But if you also consider all the challenges of a specialized boutique business on top of THAT??!! Crazy. We really handled that crap. For longer than most. We did good.

We have truly lived our dreams already. We proved ourselves. I even checked off my restaurant dreams boxes via the smoothie cafe. I’m so fulfilled.

Us closing down our brick-and-mortar retail spot does not mean failure to me.

To me, it means we truly know (and have known) where our value truly is this entire time.

Because we could have sold out or lowered our standards at any point, and that could have made a real difference for our bottom line — But that’s not what we wanted to do. It didn’t align with our values. It wouldn’t have been authentic.

So anyway… long story short — the brick and mortar retail side of our journey is done — but we STILL aren’t going anywhere.

We want to make our knowledge and experience more accessible. We want to be louder. We want to be more opinionated and more of a problem. Bc if we don’t have our own business on the line — ouuuuuu I can REALLY delve into the tea, and y’all can’t do S**T about it.

Yeah. Idk man. This is a weird thing to write. I feel like I’m supposed to be sad about this announcement, but I’m not. Y’all that come through our doors regularly for almost 7 years get it, and that’s all that matters.

More soon.

04/14/2026

A real update on what’s going on with Virginia cannabis laws right now, because it directly affects us and a lot of it is being framed in ways that don’t fully match reality.

Virginia’s Governor, Abigail Spanberger, sent the retail cannabis bill back with major changes. Lawmakers will vote on it April 22.

Here’s what actually changed, in plain terms:

1. SALES ARE DELAYED AGAIN
The start date moved from January 1, 2027 to July 1, 2027.
This matters because we already legalized possession in 2021. At this point, Virginia will have one of the longest gaps in the country between legalization and legal sales. People don’t just stop buying cannabis, so this keeps everything in the same gray market longer.

2. FEWER RETAIL LICENSES
The number of stores allowed early on was reduced from 350 to 200.
This makes it significantly harder for small, local businesses to enter the legal market. Fewer spots means more competition, and those spots are more likely to go to larger, better-funded companies.

3. BIG OPERATORS STILL HAVE A MAJOR ADVANTAGE
Some of the aspects that would have given small businesses like us kudos points in the application process have been nixed. That gives big operators an even bigger head start, while smaller businesses are competing for an even more limited number of licenses with far fewer resources.

4. MORE ENFORCEMENT, ESPECIALLY TOWARD “VAPE SHOPS”
There’s a strong push for increased enforcement, with specific language targeting “vape shops.”
This puts businesses like ours under more scrutiny, even though there still isn’t a legal retail system in place. So instead of replacing the current system, the focus is on cracking down on it. And let's not forget that the state has failed to enforce any of this comprehensively so far.

5. HARSHER PENALTIES ARE BEING PROPOSED
Some changes include increased penalties for things like public consumption and new criminal consequences tied to cannabis.
That starts to move backward from what legalization was supposed to do.

6. LESS CLARITY FOR BUSINESSES
Parts of the original bill that laid out clearer rules and support for small businesses have been removed or pushed to regulators to figure out later.
That makes it harder to plan, invest, or prepare for the future.

Even the lawmakers who wrote the original bill have said these changes reduce access, delay opportunity, and make it harder for small businesses to participate. From where we’re sitting, that feels accurate. 🤷‍♀️

We’ve built a h**p business around education, transparency, and doing things the right way. We’ve also been preparing for a future where there’s a legal, regulated market we could be part of.

Right now, that path looks more delayed, more competitive, and less accessible.

Lawmakers reconvene on April 22, so we should know more then.

But at this point, Virginia has made its priorities pretty clear: a tightly controlled rollout, fewer participants, and a strong focus on enforcement.

H**p businesses are still being framed as part of the problem, when in reality we’re small, local operators trying to do things responsibly and hoping to have a fair shot at participating in the future market.