Grand Haven Mayoral Candidate Andrea Hendrick – Her Entire Career is Based on the Cannabis and Mushroom Industries
Grand Haven has a mayoral candidate whose primary business history is based on the marijuana and mushroom industries. Andrea Hendrick, current member of the Grand Haven Board of Light and Power, is running to be the mayor of Grand Haven.
Andrea Hendrick's company, I Site Consulting Group, helps cannabis businesses find locations to open dispensaries and navigate the permitting process at the local level. I Site Consulting was formed on August 15, 2018, when she was contracted by the City of Grand Rapids to work with cannabis businesses as a city planner. Her business partner at I Site Consulting, Landon Bartley, was also employed by the City of Grand Rapids as the Cannabis Administrator and is a board member of the West Michigan Cannabis Guild. In addition to I Site Consulting, Andrea Hendrick owns Queen Leaf LLC. On October 12, 2020 Queen Leaf was given pre-qualification approval to open a marijuana Provisioning Center in the City of Grand Haven.
In 2020, Andrea Hendrick was attempting to purchase the former Rendezvous Restaurant with hopes of turning it into a provisioning center. Hendrick had entered a partnership agreement with Ramon Hana, owner of Candid Labs, LLC. In June 2023, Ramon Hana was “permanently prohibited from being employed or working in any capacity at a licensed marijuana business in Michigan.” Grand Haven requires 33% ownership by local residents to be eligible for a marijuana permit, so it seems Hendrick supplied the residency requirement while Hana supplied the industry expertise.
As part of Hendrick’s mission to assist cannabis businesses, she is referenced as the spokesperson for Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC, and Five Lakes Farms. Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC owns several cannabis stores throughout Michigan. In May 2019 Hendrick advocated for a provisioning center on behalf of Green Skies – Healing Tree LLC at a Grand Rapids City Council meeting. The application was denied. On October 13, 2021 Hendrick advocated on behalf of the grow operation Five Lakes Farms at the Lowell City Council meeting. That application was also denied.
According to the Grand Rapids Planning Commission meeting agenda packet from May 23, 2019, Andrea Hendrick was hired by Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC in a community engagement role, and she was using her personal email account at the time. In order for the city to approve the provisioning center application, Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC had to conduct two community town hall meetings and gather support from the residents living in the neighborhood documented with signed affidavits. Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC was in competition with another cannabis company for the site. The planning commission was only going to grant approval to one of them. Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC was denied approval.
Hendrick was responsible for scheduling the town hall meetings, attending the town hall meetings to answer questions from residents, collecting support affidavits, and presenting at the planning commission meeting. The city received letters from concerned residents stating that the town hall meetings were not informative because the representatives could not answer basic questions about the company, and the owner was not present. One resident went as far as to conduct background checks on Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC and its owner, and then provided the documents to the planning commission.
The majority of the support affidavits were form letters that only required resident’s signatures. An interesting piece of information was that Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC had offered residents a chance at ownership (25%). Perhaps this was offered because the owner of Green Skies – Healing Tree, LLC lives in Sterling Heights, MI (Metro Detroit Area), and they were hoping that with the offer, their application would garner resident support and impress the planning commission. It appears the residents saw right through it.
In addition to her work in the marijuana industry, Andrea Hendrick has been actively working to legalize entheogenic plants (think psychedelic mushrooms and fungi) through the group Decriminalize Nature.
Hendrick is on the board and pictured in the M-Live Article, Grand Rapids may decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms, plants later this year, along with other Decriminalize Nature board members Chad Beyer, Mary Reed Kelly, and Luke Johnson. She is an administrator on the Decriminalize Nature Grand Rapids Facebook Group and also an administrator of the Smart and Safe Grand Haven Facebook group along with Mason Osborne, Emily Matych, Rebecca Neil, and Jamie Cooper. “The purpose of the Smart and Safe Grand Haven initiative is to authorize the establishment of licensed marijuana facilities in the City of Grand Haven.” Decriminalize Nature Michigan is also doing business as Michigan Initiative for Community Healing. More information is available on the Michigan Initiative for Community Healing Facebook Page.
The activities described above that Andrea Hendrick is involved in are not illegal, but her motives are questionable. This is how she described her background in a questionnaire completed by mayoral candidates for the Grand Haven Chamber of Commerce
Although truthful, her above statement is far from transparent. All of this makes me wonder why Hendrick ran for the Board of Light and Power (BLP) seat in the first place. Was it just to get her foot in the door for the mayor seat two years down the road, or is there a connection to her marijuana interests? It takes a lot of energy resources to grow and process marijuana, but Hendrick does not seem to know anything about power aside from political power. What are her real plans for Grand Haven? There is a reason Andrea ran for the BLP. I do not think it was TO SAVE THE PLANET!