Psychodelic Emporium
June 5th, 2007
When I was a student at Framingham State this building was painted bright purple and called the “Psychedelic Emporium” (9 Main st.). I never went in there (I really didn’t) but I know they sold bongs and other marijuana accessories- BUT, they had to call everything “tobacco” accessories.
I remember driving by with a classmate of mine who was a pot smoker and even he shook his head and said “that building must bring the property value down around here by thousands of dollars”. That’s a pretty strong statement for a non-homeowner-pot-smoking-college-student to say about this place.
I guess they got busted, someone must have asked for a bong and the person behind the counter didn’t say “we don’t have bongs, just “tobacco pipes” and instead said “oh sure, right this way, we have a great selection of bongs. What? What’d I say wrong?”. I don’t know if that’s exactly how it went down but I heard it was something along that line.
I had to actually look up the permits for this address to remember the name of this place, for the life of me I couldn’t remember it. I kept thinking it was something like “House of Bong” but of course I knew it couldn’t be that. Anyway, I thought it was funny that the license type listed in the permit for this store was “JUNK - JUNK DEALER LICENSE”.
To the best of my knowledge this building hasn’t been used as anything since. Maybe some stoners put a curse on the building but according to work permits looks like a couple of construction permits were filed last month so maybe something new will finally go in there.
What construction are they doing to the right side of that building? I thought they were building extra parking for Framingham State, but they are building a wall, I have no idea why
Comment by stp — June 5, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
there was also a bong shop around the corner open around the same time as this place.I dont remember the name of it but it was were subway is now..this place use to be a movie rental place in the late 80s and then it was some hispanic yellow pages store or something like that…
Comment by eddy hauser — June 5, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
It was called Centre Video and it always had lots of Cheech and Chong Videos and cheesy 80s movies….
Comment by Mark — June 5, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
Ah, Centre Video. My brother worked there in high school, so we always got free video rentals.
The parking lot lately seems like the staging place for the construction stuff from the widening of the Route 9 ramp. I did see some workers coming out of the building recently, though, hauling out some junk. I’d love to see that place at least cleaned up. The parking lot’s always filled with trash.
Comment by Karen — June 5, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
Another unusual business was located a two buildings down the street from P-E. “Caskets Direct To You” was at #17 Main St. It was a mail order AND a dot.com business where the name says it all. They sold caskets by mail and on the Internet. Hardly anyone noticed it because Psychedelic Emporium was so brightly painted!
Comment by Alan — June 5, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
Thanks, Michele, for bringing to light another one of those Framingham oddities.
It’s kind of like the old decrepit, jersey barrier flanked, busted out windowed gas station in Nobscot — you’d think both of these locations would be perfectly desirable for a small business, but some mysterious set of circumstances seems not to allow anything productive to come of these them.
With the gas station I’m thinking it’s an issue of brownfields, or removing the old underground tanks — basically high expense to anyone who buys; but with the Emporium, who knows.
I always speculated that the owners got pissed off at the building inspector, who definitely had it out for them and ultimately did them in, and decided to spite the town and just not sell the place. It remained a neon purple eyesore for years, until more recently when someone decided essentially to swath the entire place in a a coat of bland tan.
Have you seen the cement stairway to the entrance lately? It’s completely covered in about an inch of moss, fungus and god knows whatever other primordial stew has come to life on the untrodden treads.
Comment by Matt — June 6, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
Psychedelic Emporium was shut down because the people were stupid. Here’s what happened:
Psychedelic Emporium started airing some TV and radio commercials. They had a good run, until, in one of their ads, they mocked the disclaimer that allowed them to stay in business. At the end of each add, they were required, by law, to state “All products sold are strictly for use with tobacco and tobacco products.” Well maybe they were stoned, because they aired a commercial with the disclaimer modified like this: “All products sold are strictly for use with tobacco and tobacco products…YEAH RIGHT!”
Shortly after the commercial aired, they were raided, and shut down.
The place across the street was called Euphoria, I believe, or something like that.
Comment by scott — June 8, 2007 @ 6:09 pm
I believe it was called the “Psych-O-Delic Emporium”…
Comment by Rich — June 16, 2007 @ 3:15 am
Oh yeah, I think the town made them paint it or get fined for ugliness. There’s some kind of law against it. Check the time of this post; it’s 11:20 pm
Comment by Rich — June 16, 2007 @ 3:19 am
hah that was also false information.. i was told by the owners of suger dadys in boston..who was friend witht he owners..i also had had a few “adventures” int he back room there to they had a huge “Tabbaco pipe” in the display window which was frquently used in the back room lol..and they never cleaned it ( so i guess the part abou tthem being stupid was true) when the cops came in for a normal checkup ..to make sure shit was runnin properly hey found that and busted them with fine after fine..and shut them down….
Comment by amanda — June 22, 2007 @ 10:21 pm
I played hockey with the owner, he was from Medwy MA. The comment from Amanda is exactly how it went down, but is was the employees not the owners who screwed up. The owner we’ll call him Bob, never partook in the store, he only practiced his tabbaco use while not in the building and most often with a 6 foot bamboo bong he got when he was a student at the Univ of Hawaii. My most memorable night with his 6 ft friend was one when another moron had decided to fill it with ice and Jack Daniels, thank goodness I don’t like Jack, because those who participated paid dearly….
Comment by Bob — December 7, 2007 @ 2:18 pm
I lived just down the street from here when I was about 10 or 12 years old and this place was a video store then. This was before the days of blockbuster and such. My dad and I used to go there once or twice a week and also to another video store down in the center near where Herbies used to be. I think it was upstairs? Anyway, I can’t remember the names of either place but it brings back funny memories of when my dad and I were on a sci–fi movie kick.
Comment by Barbra — September 12, 2008 @ 8:15 pm