Culture Rising

Streetsville’s headshop

Founded in 2006, Culture Rising is an established retailer of cannabis accessories specialized in high-quality glass pipes and b**gs for every price range. Culture Rising offers a boutique shopping experience and serves an international market from our 4 locations. We host frequent product releases in store, attracting large crowds for a chance to own work by some of the most highly acclaimed glass artists in North America.

Founded in Streetsville, Ontario, Culture Rising was built from scratch by Nilsson Gonsalves with the funds from a $10,000 car loan. Drawing from a pool of creative friends and inspired by the DIY punk scene, the first Culture Rising was built from modified furniture salvaged from the garbage and upon opening was stocked full of local art, music and locally made clothing, with a couple of b**gs to make it edgy. Within 5 years, Culture Rising moved into a larger space nearby, acquired real store fixtures and set out to change the way headshops look and feel. Knowing that the small suburban community wouldn’t take kindly the dank aesthetic of tie-die and cheap b**gs that were typical at the time, Culture Rising found a niche in the older clientele who felt comfortable in a clean, well lit boutique but wouldn’t set foot in a traditional headshop.

From the humblest beginnings to the inspiring realization that the community which merely tolerated them a few years prior had accepted and embraced them, the growing Culture Rising team entered a phase of rapid expansion, opening franchised locations in Port Credit, Milton, London and Brampton within 3 years.

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