Affinity is the only Affinity storefront left in Massachusetts, and it is not in Boston. It is 90 miles west, on Circuit Avenue in West Springfield, and it has been the brand’s sole Bay State address since the company’s old Boston location closed. We rate the visit a 3.8 out of 5. The store sits at 175 Circuit Avenue, West Springfield, MA 01089, it opens at 10 a.m. six days a week and 11 a.m. on Sunday, and it serves Massachusetts Medical Use of Marijuana Program patients only, no adult-use walk-ins.
That last detail is the whole story. Affinity built a real cultivation and retail brand in this state, survived a change of corporate ownership, and still runs its home turf storefront as a medical dispensary in a market where most competitors converted to dual adult-use licenses years ago. This is High Life Global’s first review of a Western Massachusetts dispensary, and West Springfield deserves the distinction: it is a different market from the Boston cluster we have already covered, built around a patient relationship rather than a walk-in crowd.
West of the River. HGH’s First Look at the Springfield Metro.
West Springfield is a city of just under 29,000 people in Hampden County, part of the Springfield metropolitan statistical area, sitting on the west bank of the Connecticut River directly across from Springfield proper. Locals still call it the West Side, a name that dates back to the town’s earliest colonial history on the far bank of a river too wide to bridge. Most of New England knows the name for one reason: West Springfield hosts the Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, the largest fair in the Northeast and the reason the town’s civic identity runs bigger than its population.
Circuit Avenue, where Affinity sits, is nowhere near the fairgrounds pageantry. It is a working commercial corridor on the Hampden County side of the metro, the kind of road built for cars and errands rather than a stroll. This is intentionally a different kind of review for us. Our existing Massachusetts coverage runs through the Boston cluster, dual-license adult-use stores serving a dense, transit-heavy city. Affinity West Springfield is a single medical storefront serving the Pioneer Valley and the Springfield metro, roughly ninety miles and an entirely different license track away. We are not scoring it against Boston. We are scoring it as the first real look HGH has taken at what cannabis retail looks like on this side of the state.
From Clinton to the Pioneer Valley. How Affinity Got Here.
Affinity says it was founded in 2017 to bring what it calls an elevated cannabis experience to New England, built around a production facility in Clinton, Massachusetts, and a cultivation team that the company says relocated from California after a combined 15 years of professional growing there. The brand’s own pitch leans on process: a curated genetics library the company puts at more than 150 strains, and an in-house extraction system built to process, in the company’s words, every usable part of the plant.
The ownership changed in 2021. Multistate operator Green Thumb Industries, the Nasdaq/CSE-listed company behind the RISE and RYTHM brands, closed on its acquisition of Liberty Compassion, Inc., described in the company’s own SEC filing as “a Massachusetts-based medical cannabis cultivator and retailer,” on June 1, 2021, for roughly $64.585 million in an all-stock deal. The filing lists Liberty Compassion as a wholly owned Green Thumb subsidiary and a Massachusetts license holder, with the acquisition covering one cultivation and production facility plus two operating medical dispensaries at the time. Affinity is the retail brand Liberty Compassion still operates under today, and the West Springfield storefront is one of the two locations that survived into the current, single-store footprint.
The Front Desk. What a Visit to Circuit Avenue Looks Like.
Every Affinity visit runs through the same front door process the company describes on its own site: check in at the front desk, present a Medical Use of Marijuana Program patient ID card and a government-issued photo ID, and an associate will offer a one-on-one consultation for anyone who wants to talk through options before heading to the counter. That consultation-first framing is a real structural difference from an adult-use dispensary, where most transactions are self-directed browsing followed by a checkout line. Affinity is set up to slow down and ask what a patient actually needs.
The company describes its retail locations as designed to be calm and inviting, with staff trained to be, in its words, friendly, empathetic and knowledgeable. All Affinity locations, including West Springfield, are ADA accessible, and the operator maintains a printed patient handbook covering what to expect on a first visit.
The Bench. A 150-Strain Library and the GTI Supply Chain.
Affinity grows and processes under its own name, and the Green Thumb ownership shows up on the shelf as a second layer of supply. The store’s own discounts page references GTI-family lines directly, including a standing loyalty perk built around Green Thumb flower, and its weekly deals page, refreshed every Thursday for the coming week by the company’s own account, has featured GTI house brands including RYTHM flower and live resin, Dogwalkers pre-rolls, and the & Shine and Good Green vape lines alongside Affinity’s own cultivated flower. That is the practical shape of the menu: Affinity’s own 150-strain genetics library as the house identity, with the Green Thumb portfolio filling in around it.
We do not have a browsable public menu to cite exact current strains or prices. The West Springfield menu sits behind an age gate on affinityne.com and updates on its own schedule, so treat any specific product name here as evidence of the kind of catalog Affinity runs, not a live inventory. For the wider Massachusetts brand landscape this store draws from, our Top Cannabis Brands in Massachusetts guide covers the wholesale layer in more depth.
Medical Only. Discounts, Loyalty, and the Register Math.
Because every customer here is a registered patient, Affinity’s entire discount structure is patient-facing rather than the everyone-gets-a-deal model an adult-use store runs. Per the store’s own discounts and loyalty page, standing single-use discounts include 20 percent off for first-time patients, 20 percent off for renewing patients, and 20 percent off within 30 days of a recertification date verified through the state’s MassCIP system. Layered on top are 10 percent discounts each for industry workers, seniors, students and educators, veterans, and a 10 percent hardship discount, plus a standing $1 Affinity bag offer. None of these are combinable with each other or with loyalty points, and Affinity says it updates its posted deals weekly, so treat the specific figures as the standing shape of the program rather than a locked-in menu price.
Ongoing, patients earn points through the company’s High Risers loyalty program on every visit, redeemable against future purchases. New and recertifying patients also get a standing 20 percent discount on their first trip after certifying or recertifying, on top of whatever the weekly deal happens to be. It is a program built around keeping a patient coming back to the same store, not around one-time promotional pricing, which tracks with a medical-only operator whose whole business model depends on registered relationships rather than foot traffic.
Getting Certified. New Patients, MassCIP, and the Paperwork.
The single biggest thing that separates Affinity from most Massachusetts dispensaries a shopper might already know is that walking in with a driver’s license and no other paperwork does not work here. Affinity’s own new patient page lays out the process in three steps: get certified by a qualified provider, which the company notes is now commonly done by telemedicine from home through partners it lists including Leafwell and Canna Care Docs; register on the state’s medical marijuana program portal using the PIN the provider issues; then bring the resulting Medical Use of Marijuana Program ID, temporary or permanent, plus a government-issued photo ID, to the store. A temporary registration card is valid for 14 days and allows purchases up to 2.5 ounces while the permanent card is in the mail.
That onboarding friction is real, and it is also the whole reason a medical-only store can run the discount stack described above. Every visitor has already cleared a state registration process, which is a different customer relationship than an adult-use retailer checking a driver’s license at the door. Affinity’s staff, per the company, will walk new patients through the certification and registration steps directly rather than pointing them at a self-serve FAQ, which matters more here than it would at a store where anyone 21 and over can simply walk in.
Hours and Access on a Commercial Corridor.
Affinity West Springfield keeps a straightforward schedule: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, per the operator’s own locations page. That is a daytime-and-early-evening window built around a patient population running errands, not a late-night adult-use crowd. The storefront is ADA accessible, and Circuit Avenue itself is a commercial road built for cars, consistent with most retail corridors in this part of Western Massachusetts rather than a walkable downtown block.
West Springfield sits directly across the Connecticut River from Springfield, with easy access from Interstate 91 and Route 5, which puts the store within a short drive of most of the Springfield metro’s roughly 700,000 residents. It is not a destination stop the way a Boston storefront doubles as a tourist errand. It is a neighborhood medical dispensary serving a specific patient population in a market HGH has not covered before.
Verify First. Then Make the Trip.
Affinity’s discounts rotate weekly and its menu updates on its own schedule behind an age gate, so confirm the current deals and product availability before driving to Circuit Avenue. If you are not yet a registered patient, start with the certification steps above; Affinity cannot serve adult-use customers at this location.
The two sources of truth here are Affinity’s own West Springfield location page and its live menu portal.
The Verdict. Best For, Skip If.
Affinity West Springfield is for a registered Massachusetts Medical Use of Marijuana Program patient in the Pioneer Valley or Springfield metro who wants a real cultivation brand, a genetics library built over eight years, and a discount structure engineered around repeat visits rather than one-time deals. A 150-strain library, a Green Thumb supply chain filling out the shelf, and a consultation-first front desk earn this store a 3.8 out of 5.
It is also the right call for anyone newly navigating the Massachusetts medical program in this part of the state. The telemedicine-to-storefront pipeline Affinity lays out is about as clear as this process gets, and the first-time and recertification discounts reward patients for actually completing it.
Skip Affinity West Springfield if you are looking for an adult-use, no-card-required storefront. This location does not serve recreational customers, and the paperwork is not optional. Skip it too if you were hoping for the brand’s old Boston footprint. That store is gone, and Circuit Avenue in West Springfield is the only Affinity address left in the state. For the rest of our Massachusetts coverage, including the dual-license Boston cluster, see our Massachusetts dispensary reviews and our best dispensaries in Massachusetts roundup.
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