District216 featured in Montecito Journal’s Lifestyle & Culture
By Steven Libowitz | September 23, 2025
It was the pandemic that caused Jacob Tell, who founded the Oniracom brand strategy and marketing agency in Santa Barbara in 2001, to create LoDo Studios out of his now nearly empty headquarters. Named SoHo-style for its location in the lower downtown area, the place turned into a studio and event space.
But it was emotions beyond commercial viability that led him to create District216 in the wake of the continued fallout from the COVID-19 lockdowns in late 2022.
“We started the place out of the isolation and loneliness epidemic, and the need to build more community and connection,” explained Tell, whose experience runs from collaborating with UCSB’s technology management program to producing music festivals to working in the cannabis industry. “I’ve been a community builder who’s brought together all sorts of different folks in and around a lot of topics.”
But Tell has also been a devout believer in the power of psychedelics, ever since the former D.A.R.E. kid during the “Just Say No (to Drugs)” era first experimented with plant medicine more for recreation than healing as a student at UCSB, he then realized how his mind and consciousness was getting expanded at the same time.
Over time, Tell said, the concept for District216 – named for its address on Gutierrez Street – was to create a membership-driven psychedelic social club that’s centered around community, healing, learning, and consciousness expansion through art, music, cannabis, and psychedelics.
“It’s kind of an amalgamation of all the different things that we’ve done, thrown into a blender,” Tell said, then pointed to the 15 different qualities in District216’s manifesto. “But it’s the value system that matters most.”
The guts of the in-person gatherings are the weekly events on Wednesdays at The District House that range from workshops to round table discussions to interviews and film screenings. Tell curates the events, vetting the presenters for experience and engagement as well as alignment with District216’s values. In keeping with the guiding principle of healing in community, the more interactive the better.
“We want to do something tactile and engaging where you interact with the people around you, something cool and special and unique,” he said.
Upcoming weekly topics include “Finding Your Guide: What to Look for in a Psychedelic Facilitator” with speakers Jessalyn Maguire and Denise Rue on September 24, a Conscious Connections Roundtable on “Accessing Our Inner Artists” on October 1, “Authentic Relating Games Night” with facilitator Eric Adler on October 8, and “Unlocking Energetic Healing: A Journey Through the Body’s Hidden Language” with Pearly Montagu on October 16.
Each event starts with 90 minutes of social networking and ends with another hour of post-presentation connection.
“We’re just really trying to connect people,” Tell said. “It’s great for those just wanting to meet people in the community or see what’s available, or just chat with people.”
As indicated by the events, not everything has psychedelics at its center.
“It’s what we’re about, but our goal is normalization, not pushing people to do things they don’t want to do,” said Tell, whose official D216 title is Chief Dreamer. “If you want to know more about what’s available or how to get started or share your experience, that’s great. But if you’re not called in that direction, that’s fine too. Everyone is welcome into the space regardless of your personal relationship with the medicines – seasoned psychonaut, a wellness seeker, or simply curious.”
But the big event on the calendar is decidedly connected to District216’s core: “Death & Psychedelics.” The next quarterly Marquee Event is the tenth since D216’s founding in January 2023. The five-hour gathering delving into plant medicine’s role in dealing with dying is a wide-ranging gathering that includes fireside chats, discussion panels, interactive workshops, live music, visual performances, and experiential activations, as well as a curated vendor marketplace and dinner provided by The Blue Owl.
“We’re missing a lot of the conversation around death and dying in our culture,” Tell said. “We don’t really have a lot of history the way indigenous cultures do. So we’re hoping that this gives people some tools and perspectives so they can approach the subject of death more proactively with some tools and some tactics and less fear.”
A schedule, full descriptions of the activities, bios of the presenters (including EntheoMedicine Santa Barbara co-founder Jacqueline Lopez) and tickets are available at:
https://events.humanitix.com/district216-death-and-psychedelics-marquee-event
“Everyone is invited to the marquee events or any Wednesday,” Tell said. “If you’re new to psychedelics or a total psychonaut, it’s a place to learn, grow, share, and connect. It’s a very open, great welcoming group of people that we’ve curated over the last three years.”
