“Bali!”
The famed nickname of the Jamaica-born Balram Vaswani, 44, and the CEO of Kaya Herb House.
Bali is considered a man who never stops, a man who puts his money where his mouth is, and a man with a poised-straight-forward personality, perfect for putting up a fight with the fatal COVID-19 pandemic.
Battling the impact of the pandemic, many businesses had to close shop for days, unlike Bali who has never closed the doors of Kaya in five years until the new curfew order from Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Sunday (March 21), that requires a complete lockdown of the island’s activities on selected days.
With operating a business, the profits must be greater than the loss and so with the pandemic posing as a crisis there is a constant need to calculate the cost of the business’ earnings during its daily hours, taking into consideration the number of persons allowed on the compound or in the
store, also noting the cost to implement the safety protocols from sanitisation to temperature checks to extra security.
The new protocols and restrictions are really putting businesses such as Kaya in a situation where it operates at a loss while keeping its doors open.
Will Bali win this battle against this fatal disease that is stripping countries of its finances and livelihood?
“The shift from the tourist market declined from 70 per cent to 30 per cent while increasing 85 per cent on the local front moving up from 15 per cent.”
Balram Vaswani, CEO of Kaya Herb House
Our Today sat down with Bali and this is what he had to say: “…We decided at any rate to stay open and never close our doors, especially after seeing the gradual greater shift from the tourist market to the local market.”
He continued: “The shift from the tourist market declined from 70 per cent to 30 per cent while increasing 85 per cent on the local front moving up from 15 per cent.”
Though there has been an increase in the local consumption rate, Kaya is still operating at a loss as the daily traffic in and out of Kaya’s locations changed.
Among the changes observed by Bali was that the patrons would typically spend, let’s say, $5,000 on a normal visit; now they spend $2,500, but maybe come twice a week instead of coming in once a week.
Another change is that, before the pandemic, patrons would come in with issues like anxiety, panic attacks, eating, sleeping disorder and epilepsy; now, there is an increase in consumption but for the same issues.
However, when the patrons do go in, the real change that Bali claimed to have noticed mostly was that the patrons were ‘healing and finding themselves’ once they started using products.
So, maybe the pandemic is helping after all?
The patrons are informed about the benefits of each strain.
With knowledge you find that there is a greater appreciation to explore the different products available to smoke, whether a Sativa that brings out inner creativity and alertness or Indica that makes its users drowsy or leaves them clouded with thoughts.
Our Today took to asking Bali more questions in an effort to figure out the consumption level of the different gender types, which revealed a not-so-shocking truth.
Kaya always had a strong following but, “Woman buyers have gotten much more particular. Just like anything in life, I think women are better buyers, especially when buying more sophisticated, cleaner products that leave you smelling weed-free. You know a guy or a man would just go with the flow of weed and papers, but a lot of women couldn’t even roll”.
When he mentioned women and the fact that there is even a consumption base that can be counted, all wheels were paused, as there are many stereotypes attached to the usage of marijuana such as:
- Anybody that smokes ganja does not do anything with their lives.
- Anybody that smokes ganja is a deterrent to the community.
- Anybody that’s doing it is on the street hustling and stuff like
- It’s a dirty drug
- It’s a cheap drug
He however quickly stated that there has been a shift regarding the negative stereotypes attached to weed, such as:
- The price of a street weed values at $100 a bag versus that of a medical dispensary, valuing more
- You get information justifying the feeling that you’re going to get and knowing the actual benefits from a medical standpoint, when purchasing from Kaya
- Success stories like Elon Musk and his accomplishment with Tesla, being the richest man in the world right now
Bali even cracked a joke, stating that even “Kamala Harris came out saying she inhaled, she’s not hiding around and saying she didn’t inhale like Bill Clinton”.
The thing is, women see men lounging around, smoking and chilling and they want to do that too with their girlfriends with weed and wine that enhances their social experiences because “women like to talk, and they don’t want to stay still”.
Bali said, “What I’ve seen is that the accessibility to sativa, and the realisation that it rejuvenates one’s creativity, pushing you to work twice as fast, making you feel like you want to do more with your life. For women, you’re seeing a lot more use in the sativa but I wouldn’t say it’s more
than men. However, what I can say is women were at a low 10 per cent now, the female clientele has increased to 35 per cent. Therefore, comparing to men, if women continue to support Kaya, their numbers will gradually go up then I think there would be a balance of nearly even.”
As it relates to actual statistics of the demographics regarding Kaya, Bali did not hold back.
The rate in female consumption has risen, yes, however, the working class who operates from home, probably has more disposable income and more time to lounge by Kaya and buy products.
Kaya is centrally located, making its location super convenient so they see between the 25 to 45 age brackets.
Mostly because they’re the stronger age foundation, the little older folks have to be a bit more concerned and wearier due to COVID-19 disease and the ones that are younger than age 25 are still dealing with university and or virtual school.
Bali’s hope is that while the pandemic is still at large, people will learn to find a balance in life.
“I want people to get into a more balanced life, a difference where a normal person will become more rounded after the pandemic, rather than stick to their bubble of where you would just run home on a Friday evening after work.”
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