Recreational cannabis stores coming

Where they are and what you need to know for Jan. 10 openings

On Jan. 10, when up to seven retail cannabis stores open across Connecticut, there likely will be long lines, but people in the industry don’t expect the crazy crowds that came out on a wet, dreary day in Massachusetts on Nov. 20, 2019.

For one thing, the novelty is past. For three years, Connecticut residents have been able to drive up to Massachusetts to buy pot legally.

For another, the nine retailers of adult-use marijuana given the OK to open at 10 a.m. Jan. 10 — two won’t be ready on that date — are already selling medical marijuana, which is how they were able to get ready first.

And in 2019, Northampton and Leicester were the only locations where recreational cannabis could be purchased in all of Massachusetts, whose population is more than twice that of Connecticut.

Still, there is certain to be quite a demand for legalized recreational cannabis in Connecticut. Here’s what you need to know about the launch of recreational sales:

What locations will be open on Jan. 1 0 ?

The Department of Consumer Protection announced Dec. 9 that six companies with nine total locations had met the requirements to open as hybrid sales locations, meaning they can sell both medical and recreational cannabis, and that they could open on Jan. 10.

They are Affinity Health & Wellness, 1351 Whalley Ave., New Haven; Bluepoint Wellness of Connecticut, 471 E. Main St., Branford; The Botanist, 105 Mill Plain Road, Danbury and 887 Norwichnew London Turnpike, Montville; Fine Fettle Dispensary, 2280 Berlin Turnpike, Newington, 12 Research Drive, Stamford, and 1548 W Main

St., Willimantic; Still River Wellness, 3568 Winsted Road, Torrington; and Zen Leaf Meriden, 1371 E Main St., formerly Willow Brook Wellness.

The Botanist’s Danbury location reportedly won’t open Jan. 10 because it has yet to receive zoning approval, according to Dan Glissman, co-founder of the Connecticut Cannabis Chamber of Commerce.

And Still River Wellness will take about another month to open because managing partner Tom Macre is expanding to have a separate space for the recreational sales in the same building, with its own vault, so retail customers won’t mix with medical marijuana patients.

“We’re actually going to have our medical dispensary continue operating the way it is,” Macre said. “And then on the other side of the building, we’re going to have a separate check-in process with a separate point-of-sale area and a separate vault. So basically two dispensaries combined into one, whereas the other hybrid facilities are actually just adding additional registers within their medical operation.”

One of the conditions for hybrid sellers was that medical marijuana patients get first priority and Macre said his layout is one way of doing that. “We want the customers to have a good experience when they come the first time, so opening up a few weeks later, I don’t think is too big of a deal.”

He said he’ll be hiring 10 to 15 new employees.

Are the sellers opening Jan. 10 prepared for recreational sales?

Yes, said Adam Wood, president of the cannabis chamber, because they are already experienced in the ins and outs of medical marijuana and the Department of Consumer Protection has set them up to succeed.

“I think DCP … has done an extraordinary job pushing things into position and getting everything organized properly,” Wood said. “And I think the existing businesses … already know how the regulated system works for the medical side, and I think are in a really good, strong position in terms of being able to open their doors for retail.”

He said issues such as the supply chain and relationships with the four existing growers won’t be a challenge.

Are big crowds expected on the first day?

“I think there will be a fair amount of cannabis tourism,” Glissman said. “People will drive by these stores, take a look at them, see what it’s like. It’s the first adult-use sales of cannabis in Connecticut, but I don’t think it will be like what we saw in Massachusetts.”

In the Bay State, “there were two stores that opened and they were the only adult-use sales east of the Mississippi River. So we had people coming from all over the East Coast,” he said.

Now, Rhode Island has opened for business and New York opened its first dispensary in Greenwich Village this week. “So there’s a lot more options for people now,” Glissman said.

Wood also said he believes the sellers are ready for crowds. “I think there’s a lot of excitement in the state about opening day and I’m sure there’ll be long lines, but I’ve talked to a number of the folks who are going to be opening their doors on Jan. 10 and they’re ready,” he said.

How much cannabis can I buy and how often can I make a purchase?

A customer can buy up to a quarter ounce of cannabis flower, or its equivalent, per transaction, but there is no one officially watching to limit “looping,” coming back to make multiple transactions in a short time.

“We don’t really anticipate that to be too much of a problem,” said state consumer protection spokeswoman Kaitlyn Krasselt.

Equivalent products include:

„ ■ Seven pre-rolled cigarettes with 1 gram of cannabis each (0.25 ounce is just under 7 grams), 14 cigarettes with half a gram of pot or any combination totaling 7 grams

„ ■ Two to four vape cartridges, which come in half- and 1-milliliter sizes

„ ■ Cookies or brownies, which have about 0.8 grams of cannabis, would mean a purchase of eight or nine cookies (with no more than 5 milligrams of THC).

How much will products cost?

That hasn’t been determined by the four growers yet, according to Ray Pantalena, dispensary manager for Affinity Health & Wellness. Cannabis with a THC content higher than 30% can only be sold to medical marijuana patients, he said, so the price of a gram of low-thc cannabis will have its own pricing.

“We buy from the four licensed producers that are currently in the state,” Pantalena said. “They put out their prices. They put out their offerings twice a week to us. We normally order twice a week. It changes every week. We have not seen the adult menu yet.”

Also, he said, “there is a pretty hefty sales tax on the adult-use side.” In addition to the 6.35% sales tax, there will be a 3% tax going to the town where the dispensary is located and a 10% to 15% tax based on THC content, according to the DCP.

What are the retail stores like?

James Leventis, executive vice president of Verano Holdings Corp., which owns Zen Leaf Meriden, said its sites “operate a lot like a normal retail location. … They’re more akin to coming into an Apple store than a head shop or pharmacy or something like that. There’s plenty of security. That’s the only real noticeable difference.”

Customers likely will be asked to check in and provide an ID. Medical patients must show their medical ID card.

Zen Leaf will have cannabis consultants to help identify the best variety and strain of marijuana. “For the most part, you’re walking up to a register, you’re placing an order on an ipad, you’re ringing up the sale and you’re walking out with your product,” Leventis said. There won’t be product on the sales floor, however.

Customers also can order online or at a kiosk, he said. The company has hired more than 15 people for its recreational sales force.

When will the next round of retailers open?

After Jan. 10, retailers can open as soon as they’ve fulfilled the DCP requirements, according to Krasselt. There won’t be one date when several will open at the same time, she said.

“The next round are probably going to be the so-called equity joint ventures. Glissman said. “And most likely that’s going to be the equity joint ventures between the existing medical operators and their social equity partner.”

Fine Fettle, for example, has a social equity partner for a retail site in Manchester, Glissman said. “And that’s probably going to be ready even before some of the other medical groups are ready,” he said.

The social equity partners are those who come from “disproportionately impacted areas” from the so-called war on drugs and were able to apply for licenses under Section 149 of the adult-use law.

Glissman said the winners of the licensing lottery will be next in line to open.

“We have people in the pipeline who are working on getting their businesses open,” Krasselt said, whether lottery winners or equity joint ventures.

“They’re working on setting up their businesses and as they are ready, and they come to us and they say, ‘OK, we’re ready for our final license, come to the inspection,’ we’ll go inspect, make sure that everything is ready to go and then they’ll be able to open once they get their final license,” she said.

What happens to the medical marijuana part of the business?

Each hybrid location must create a “medical preservation plan,” Pantalena said. He said his is “pretty robust.”

“The DCP and legislature wanted to make sure that the current medical population wasn’t kind of swept up and lost in the adult-use program,” Pantalena said.

“So part of our medical preservation program is we’re going to have expedited entrance into the facility just for them. They won’t have to wait in any lines,” he said. “They’ll have their own check-in windows … They will also have their own checkout windows so they don’t have to wait in line.”

What can we look forward to in 2023?

“I think the exciting part about the businesses that are going to be opening between now and the end of the year is it’s going to be a lot of these social equity applicants and the state really made a major determination and focus on their legalization program to to have a benefit for social equity applicants and social equity communities,” Wood said.

“And so I think what you’ll see between now and the end of the year is those businesses opening and those economies being impacted, and that’s going to be a really different story than has been told in other states in our country and it’s going to be great to see it work,” he said.

How much does it cost to open a recreational sales location?

In addition to construction and renovation costs, hybrid operators paid a $500,000 fee to the state. Cultivation facilities paid $1.5 million. Equity applicants were required to pay $3 million, which will be invested into the affected communities, as well as a loan fund and a business accelerator program, affiliated with Oaksterdam University in Oakland, Calif., which calls itself the world’s first cannabis college.

Are all the adult-use retailers Connecticut-based?

By no means. Multistate operators are involved in many of the retail licenses that will be coming on board starting Jan. 10. One, Fine Fettle, is a multi-state operator that is based in Hartford and has licenses in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Georgia. It’s “a local Connecticut team and company,” according to CEO Ben Zachs.

Another, Verano Holdings Corp., based in Chicago, operates in 13 states with 120 dispensaries. It also has a 217,000-square-foot cultivation and processing plant in a former Mckesson distribution center in Rocky Hill known as CT Pharma.

Verano also operates a medical marijuana retailer in Waterbury called Caring Nature that will convert to a hybrid facility within two months, Leventis said.

What do the companies need to do to open recreational dispensaries?

Zachs of Fine Fettle, which has proposed an indoor growing plant on farmland in Bloomfield, said, “it’s been a whirlwind. We’ve been planning and preparing over 18 months. We got all of our local zoning. We did everything we needed to. We’ve been interviewing and putting job postings up about four months ago.”

Zachs said the company has hired about 100 new employees in its three retail locations, as well as additional support staff. “So it’s been pretty exciting,” he said.

But it’s been a lot of work getting stores ready to open in Willimantic, Newington and Stamford.

“We had to get zoning in all three of our towns to be able to get approved to sell recreationally in the town,” Zachs said. “We had tons and tons of paperwork, just paperwork, and operational plans for how we operate in both a medical and recreational capacity. And then we also had a $500,000 conversion fee for each station that we had to pay.”

How is an equity joint venture different from a hybrid?

Fine Fettle plans a joint venture in Manchester. “Our signs actually just went up,” Zachs said. “We’re hoping for our inspections now in January and then to be open as soon as possible and we’re super proud of that one because most states have not gotten equity owned.”

Zachs said he’s “proud to be from Connecticut, a state who’s doing it that way. And I’m proud of our team for racing to the finish line to get that set and open and so that one’s in Manchester and then we hope to open more later.”

Unlike other states, which “didn’t get equity licenses open for years, literally years and … we might possibly be open within a month of the other stores,” Zachs said.

“That is a testament to how Connecticut is prioritized,” he said. “Right the wrongs of the past around cannabis and arrest numbers And you know, made it a point to get licenses going. … We did a ton of work to make that happen with our partners, but I think it’s a really big deal and something that I hope people understand and they should be proud of.”