💸 The Tape

In a move that says a lot about where consumer culture is heading, Chicago’s United Center just did something no other major U.S. arena has done before: it put THC beverages on the menu.

Through a new multi-year partnership with Chicago-based brands Señorita and RYTHM, the iconic venue is introducing hemp-derived THC drinks at concerts and live events for guests 21 and over. Translation: at one of the country’s largest and most recognizable entertainment arenas, the alcohol monopoly just got a very modern neighbor.

These beverages will be available at most concerts, shows, and special events, sold through multiple touchpoints across the venue — grab-and-go stations, traditional bars, and even a dedicated Señorita mobile branded bar. The rollout aligns with a packed event calendar featuring global tours, major comedy acts, and headline cultural moments, placing THC drinks squarely in the middle of mainstream nightlife.

Ben Kovler, Chairman and Interim CEO of RYTHM’s parent company, framed the shift in straightforward consumer terms: people want non-alcoholic options that still offer a social experience. Venues, ever sensitive to demand curves and evolving preferences, are listening.

From an industry standpoint, this isn’t just a novelty — it’s a distribution milestone. THC beverages have been steadily expanding through retail channels like Binny’s, Woodman’s, and Foxtrot in Chicago, but placement inside a venue of this scale moves the category from “emerging trend” to institutional acceptance. When a legacy arena builds infrastructure for cannabinoid drinks alongside beer taps and cocktail rails, it signals that these products are no longer niche.

The initial lineup keeps things approachable: four 5 mg hemp-derived THC options. Señorita is leaning into familiar cocktail flavor profiles — Lime Jalapeño Margarita, Mango Margarita, and Grapefruit Paloma — designed to mimic the social ritual of a mixed drink without the alcohol. RYTHM’s entry takes a different angle, offering a sativa-style beverage with mandarin orange and natural caffeine for an uplifting, event-friendly feel.

United Center executives emphasized evolution rather than disruption: this is about expanding guest choice, not replacing existing offerings. That framing matters. THC beverages are increasingly being positioned not as counterculture products, but as adjacent lifestyle options — another lane in the “modern drinking” spectrum.

Culturally, the optics are powerful. A venue synonymous with championship banners, sold-out tours, and national broadcasts is normalizing cannabis consumption in a controlled, regulated, hospitality environment. It reflects a broader shift where cannabinoids are moving from dispensary shelves into everyday social settings — concerts, sporting events, and shared experiences.

For the beverage side of the cannabis industry, this is less a one-off activation and more a proof of concept. If THC drinks can operate smoothly at the United Center, other major venues will be watching closely. And in consumer markets, once a behavior becomes part of live entertainment, it tends to stick.

The encore here isn’t just another product launch — it’s a sign that cannabis beverages are stepping onto the main stage.

📈 Dog Walkers

$SHFS ( ▲ 20.19% ) Upgrades Payment Rails

If cannabis finance had a motto for the past decade, it would be: hope your payment processor doesn’t wake up nervous. Safe Harbor just made that a little less of a daily existential concern.

SHF Holdings (Nasdaq: SHFS), better known as Safe Harbor, announced a meaningful expansion of its payments stack through new partnerships with Lüt and GreenCard — a move that’s less about flashy fintech buzzwords and more about operational survival in one of the most fragile payment environments in U.S. commerce.

In cannabis, payments aren’t just a back-office function. They’re a risk-management discipline.

The Core Problem: One Rail Is No Rail

Cannabis operators have historically leaned on a patchwork of ACH debits, cashless ATM workarounds, and old-fashioned paper-heavy processes. Each method works… until it doesn’t. Outages, policy shifts, banking partner nerves, or network disruptions can grind sales to a halt faster than a compliance inspection.

Safe Harbor’s thesis is simple: redundancy equals resilience.

CEO Terry Mendez framed it clearly — operators don’t need a single “silver bullet” processor. They need multiple, independent payment rails that keep transactions flowing when one system inevitably hiccups. The Lüt and GreenCard additions push Safe Harbor closer to being a full-spectrum payments hub rather than just another cannabis-friendly banking relationship.

Lüt: The Closed-Loop Safety Net

Lüt introduces a wallet-based, closed-loop system built around pre-funded consumer accounts. From a risk perspective, that’s powerful: funds are guaranteed before the transaction hits the register.

For dispensaries, this means less exposure to processing disruptions during peak hours — exactly when outages hurt most. For consumers, checkout behaves more like mainstream digital wallets. And for operators trying to drive repeat traffic, Lüt layers in loyalty and incentive tools that turn payments into a marketing lever, not just a utility.

In a sector where “payment failure” can mean lines out the door and lost sales, a closed-loop fallback system is less of a convenience and more of a business continuity plan.

GreenCard: Cleaning Up the B2B Mess

If Lüt addresses the retail checkout problem, GreenCard goes after something arguably more painful: vertical integration payment friction.

Cannabis MSOs often juggle cultivation, manufacturing, wholesale, delivery, and retail — all with different payment cycles. GreenCard’s platform aims to unify those flows while converting slow, check-based B2B cycles into next-day ACH settlement with real-time invoice reporting.

That’s not just operational efficiency — it’s working capital optimization. Shorter cash cycles mean less capital tied up in transit and fewer balance-sheet headaches.

The Bigger Strategy: Payments as Infrastructure

These additions join existing partners like CanPay, plus Vector Payments and GreenLink Merchants, creating one of the more diversified cannabis-compliant payment portfolios in the market. ACH, closed-loop wallets, cashless ATM alternatives — all under one fintech umbrella connected to regulated banking rails.

This isn’t accidental timing. As federal reform chatter ebbs and flows, operators can’t build strategies around hypothetical legislation. They need infrastructure that functions under current constraints.

Safe Harbor’s recent rollout of insurance and payroll services signals where this is headed: from “cannabis-friendly bank access” to a full-stack financial services platform for a federally awkward industry.

Why This Matters

In traditional retail, payments are invisible. In cannabis, they are a core operational risk vector.

By stacking multiple compliant payment options, Safe Harbor is effectively telling the market: no operator should go dark because one processor sneezes.

That may not be glamorous fintech storytelling. But in cannabis, boring reliability is a competitive edge.

$VRNO ( ▼ 4.07% ) Expands In Florida

Verano is continuing its steady Florida march, opening MÜV Deltona and pushing its statewide store count to 83 MÜV locations — and 160 dispensaries nationwide. In a state where retail density, brand familiarity, and patient access drive long-term share, this isn’t just another ribbon cutting. It’s incremental infrastructure in one of the most strategically important cannabis markets in the country.

Located on Providence Boulevard, the new store marks Verano’s fifth location in Volusia County, joining Orange City, Ormond Beach, Port Orange, and New Smyrna Beach. That cluster strategy matters. Rather than single pins on a map, Verano is building regional saturation, shortening drive times for patients and increasing brand visibility in daily consumer patterns.

Grand opening promotions — up to 50% off storewide — are designed to accelerate patient trial and basket building, a familiar but effective playbook in Florida’s competitive medical market. The store will showcase Verano’s multi-brand architecture, including Savvy, Sweet Supply, MÜV, (the) Essence, Encore, On the Rocks, Avexia, and Verano Reserve. The breadth underscores Verano’s approach: segment by price, format, and use case rather than rely on a single hero label.

The Deltona launch also rides on a year of category expansion in Florida. Verano has leaned into high-velocity segments, including Savvy 10-pack barrel-style pre-rolls for value-driven consumers and Avexia topicals targeting wellness and localized relief — a format that continues to resonate with older and function-focused patients. The company also rolled out its partnership with Flower by Edie Parker, bringing lifestyle-forward vape hardware and cartridges into the MÜV ecosystem, a nod to brand differentiation beyond cannabinoid content alone.

Operationally, MÜV continues to emphasize patient experience infrastructure: online menus, express pickup, virtual and in-store consultations, and concierge-style support. In a medical-only framework like Florida’s, service layers are not fluff — they’re retention tools that support repeat visits and higher lifetime value.

At a macro level, each Florida opening reinforces Verano’s positioning ahead of potential regulatory evolution. Whether the state remains medical-only or transitions to broader adult-use access in coming cycles, store count, real estate positioning, and established patient relationships are durable advantages.

MÜV Deltona may be one more storefront, but strategically it’s another brick in a statewide network built for scale, brand reach, and operational leverage in one of the most watched cannabis markets in the U.S.

🗞️ The News

📺 YouTube

Understanding the Real Cannabis Rescheduling Timeline | TDR Cannabis in 5

What we will cover:

✅ What actually has to happen before cannabis can be rescheduled at the federal level — and what should people be watching for right now?

In this episode of TDR Cannabis in Five presented by Flowhub, host Shadd Dales walks through the real administrative process behind marijuana rescheduling, step by step, in the order it has to happen. There’s been plenty of debate and plenty of timeline talk, but the federal rulemaking process doesn’t move on assumptions — it moves on procedure.

The episode breaks down the key milestones: the DEA’s internal review, the DEA’s recommendation package, the Attorney General’s role, and what it means when a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) gets signed. From there, it explains why publication in the Federal Register matters so much, and how the required public comment period becomes the next major checkpoint.

The goal here is simple: help cannabis operators, investors, and policy watchers understand what each milestone actually means, what can and can’t happen next, and why certain steps can’t be skipped — even with executive branch pressure to move quickly.