The Chillin’ Rooms Is Back: In Conversation With Gary Youds
First established back in 2002 by Liverpudlian legend Gary Youds, the flagship Chillin’ Rooms coffeeshop in Liverpool has been open on and off over the last two decades. In these years, Gary has endured multiple arrests, raids, and convictions for operating the well-loved community institution.
Holt Road in ‘Kenny’ (slang for Kensington) is a roller shuttered high street. It could be any economically deprived region in the UK. But tucked away behind a Jamaican takeaway and accessed through an unassuming pair of black gates, emblazoned with a large monochrome 麻 [Má] logo – the Chinese symbol for cannabis – I find the UK’s premier coffeeshop: The Chillin Room Liverpool.
Gary greets me at the gate. He is wearing his signature black boots and a big, mischievous smile. After being treated to a grand tour of the premises, an evening of VIP treatment and good vibes ensues. Table service means that guests have no need to do anything but relax, socialise, and enjoy the live music from local musicians that is now rostered for 6 nights a week. The next several hours pass with ease and enjoyment.
The next day, the morning is fresh and bright. I sit in Gary’s modest kitchen with a slight ‘stone over’. The kettle on the gas stove whistles for attention with increasing urgency. As it approaches a screaming, cacophonous crescendo, Gary flicks the whistle from the kettle, turns off the stove, and makes us both a mercifully strong coffee.
A large pile of loosely trimmed, locally produced, organic sour diesel fills the space between us. We roll up and light our first joints of the day. The low winter sun streams in through the kitchen window, illuminating our billowing smoke. I am about to interview a living legend.
Wake and Bake with The Chillin’ Rooms Founder Gary Youds
(Simpa) Hey Gary, thanks so much for having me. We’re so happy that the Chillin Rooms is back! Why now and why is it so important for UK cannabis culture to have these spaces?
(Gary) It’s important for these places to exist because the country is on its knees. It’s anarchy on the streets. The drug war has ravaged our communities. The people need a safe space to come together and just experience the creative vibe that we’ve got with the lighting, live music, and euphoric atmosphere. Everything about this is a game changer. We can put crime out of business, get rid of the roller shutters and live in peace.
We need them [Chillin Rooms] now more than ever. Because of Covid, everyone’s been stuck in their houses for years, but we can get out of the house now and visit a lovely safe space, listen to live music and meet the community and just bring peace. Every single day, organically it’s getting more creative, the bands are getting better. The job is done, I’ve got nothing to do now I’m just chillin up there and the staff are all working impeccably and it’s just gelling together as I knew it always would.
I’ve still got bits I’d like to add to it like the interactive boardroom and the connectivity with the app but there is no such word as no, just grow! You can watch me, I’m doing it every single day. I’m already doing this, no if or buts. So pull your socks up or you’re getting left behind. If you want to be in this industry, do it now!
So you can plug into the app or create your own genetics and be part of the industry as long as it’s organic, creative, and we all give back, that’s my [Chillin Rooms] ethos. It’s time to shine, to open the industry up right now, plant your seeds and get your businesses ready and work with us as we all join as one. No egos, none of that just harmonising.
We’re really intrigued as to how you’re incorporating technology into your expansion plans. Can you talk to us about the app and about digitising the movement?
Well [eventually] the Chillin Rooms will be cashless. So you’ll have to download the app to be ‘licensed to chill.’ It’ll verify your age and let you set up an account to pay entry and order drinks and snacks to the table. It’ll do everything for everybody.
The app will run the business and allow Chillin Rooms to be copied and pasted around the world. It’s basically an artificial version of me. So you’ll be dealing with me, but you won’t have to sit in a room with me, but you will still get my integrity.
It’s just like a restaurant app where you can book your seat, but you’ll be able to see what other people are in that night. [It’s] Like booking a seat on an airline, the app will fill the seats every single night and sell it out. So you’ll have to book your seat in advance because you couldn’t get in the door every night in 2004 and that was before social media.
We’re thirty years ahead of the game as far as I’m concerned, we’ve got my twenty years experience plus my app designer who is ten years ahead… so connect with us and grow with us.
The Chillin Rooms are the stuff of legend. It’s reported you’ve been arrested more than 50 times – a judge even called you a cannabis martyr! What keeps you going?
Integrity, standing tall, doing the right thing and looking at myself in the mirror everyday and asking am I doing good for the community? And every time it’s yes, yes, yes! It’s everything for everybody and that keeps me going.
What sort of relationship do you have with the authorities now? Has it evolved over time – how underground is what you’re doing?
We’re not officially reopened yet, but we’re not hiding either. Its not underground any more. I’ve been out there for the last few months getting the word out, and in the past I’ve been on radio stations with politicians and they’re fully supporting me. I’ve met crime commissioners and MPs and I’ve been to Parliament a few times. It’s been a twenty year fight, you know. So I just do my own thing and whatever I am doing I get stuck into and get the job done. That’s just what I do as a businessman.
All of the instruments are hopefully coming together and joining my orchestra now. I’m at the top of the mountain. I have people from all walks of life from locals from the community to the highest echelons of business and government who have been connecting with me and supporting me as far as I am aware.
It’s an official company with premises, directors, and accountants. It’s now getting the technology together to bring us the 100 percent legality. Just come and visit us and see it for yourself, okay, because you’re never going to have experienced anything like the Chillin Rooms – It’s extravaganza!
How can cannabis reinvigorate communities?
It can get rid of all the alcohol and pharmaceuticals for starters. It can bring industry and high paying jobs and harmony back to the community. It’s literally growing our communities. Ultimately it can bring us all back together. We can all stand tall in our community and be proud to say they’re smokers and growers and know they’re all tax paying and legit.
It’ll grow the economy every single day, it creates safe organic spaces, it’ll put food on peoples tables, pay taxes, and fund everything the local councils need to build better communities. We hope that as the Chillin Rooms expands across Liverpool it can fund and pay for local projects for the community like leisure centres.
A local band plays at the Chillin’ Rooms – Photo by Simpa Carter
For years, Liverpool was the epicentre of the drug war in the UK. What lasting impact has that had on your city?
It’s devastated our city since I was 13/14 years of age. I’ve watched the heroin come into the city and I’ve watched the whole drug war just rip the community apart ever since. It’s an avalanche of bad, isn’t it? Just splitting families up, putting people in jail, people were shot, they were murdered.
It’s just become a part of society now, but The Chillin Rooms is going to change it all. It’s going to put the drug war to bed, okay. Liverpool has already changed a lot since we opened and it’s going to change more, it’s a new age that we’re coming into now.
No one is going to be selling class A drugs in this city, I promise you we’re all getting back to the flower and chilling out.
Tell us your perspective on what’s happening in the ‘prescription cannabis’ market in the UK at the moment. It sounds cliche but at GQM, we truly believe that weed can heal the world – our planet and our health. But we’re also concerned about ‘Big Weed’, conglomerate takeovers and corporate monopolies.. How do we make sure the plant is for the people?
Grow Your Own then you know it’s yours and what’s in it. Getting back to nature and teaching others to grow organically – use worm farms and all those little things which can empower people to become self sustainable, a part of the community. If you get good at it you can make a wage from it. We build our own industry and economies with our knowledge and our experience.
I don’t really know what they’ve been doing or what they’ve been saying, but to me it’s a load of elite shareholders just ring fencing cannabis for their own selfish selves. While people like me are still hunted down. My way is the highway, it’s tried and tested and everything for everybody.
The Chillin Rooms is the new social hub – it’s where people come together and that’s the organic healing. Here you can come together to meet new people and just expand your mind. Community spaces like mine are the answer, the community needs more organic spaces like this.
We’re closely watching what’s happened in Canada and the atrocities in California with legacy farmers being shut out of the culture they created. How do we avoid this in the UK and what can we learn from those in front of us legislation wise?
Just learn from me. Canada and the US already have all the problems and they don’t know what to do. Chillin Rooms has got all the answers, I’ve been working on this for twenty years now – it’s a fine-tuned way to operate the whole industry. So plant our seeds because as far as I am concerned, the industry is sewed up.
This [Chillin Rooms] is community over corporation, this is the right way to give back to local communities. It’s giving people a way to participate and go legit – no fiddling the leccy [electric] or any of that.
The US and Canadian corporations haven’t built a community, they haven’t even thought about the community, they’ve just thought about the shareholders or it’s ‘me me me’ and how do we make our brand return the most profit.
My vision is to give back, it’s not all about me. I am not a very extravagant person, I just keep my head down. I go to car booties, I don’t like the chemical highs or gambling – I live a humble life.”
Written for Green Queen Magazine by Simpa
