Calif. town may be going to pot
Firm aims to make Nipton a weed mecca
A cannabis investment firm aims to buy a tiny town in the Mojave Desert outside Las Vegas, imagining a selfsustaining marijuana mecca where public pot smoking is welcome and entrepreneurs face fewer regulations.
The buyer, Arizona-based American Green, said it has made a binding offer to purchase the 80-acre town of Nipton and 40 acres nearby for $5 million. The town includes a hotel, trading post and RV park. American Green is negotiating to buy a solar array that provides about half of Nipton’s power.
A geologist who once prospected the area assembled all the land under his ownership in the early 1980s. His widow and the current owner, Roxanne Lang, listed the town for sale last year.
“The town is the medium,” said Stephen Shearin, who manages the project for American Green. “It becomes an icon. This is a legitimate effort to do something significant in this arena. It’s an idea whose time has come.”
Shearin said he hopes Nipton can be a model for other small towns across America by spurring the creation of made-in-the-USA jobs and industry.
Residents have wondered what the future holds since Nipton went on the market. Recent transplant Carl Cavaness estima- teed the permanent population at 18 or 19 people. A few weeks ago, Cavaness said, he and his wife wondered whether marijuana could bring some much-needed traffic here.
“We get a lot of traffic through here that doesn’t stop,” Cavaness said.
California and Nevada legalized recreational use of marijuana in 2016 — although it’s still illegal to carry the drug across state lines. That means Nevadans couldn’t come to Nipton, buy marijuana and take it home.
Dispensaries are booming in nearby Las Vegas, and California aims to have its marijuana stores running next year.
Interstate 15, which is 20 miles northwest of Nipton, is the primary route from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. A red asphalt two-lane road through scrub brush links Nipton to the interstate and the Colorado River, and trains pass almost every hour along railroad tracks at the edge of town.
Nipton’s businesses include a general store, an RV park and a five-room hotel, where the Cavanesses work. If the sale closes, American Green expects it will take about two years to update the businesses to cater to cannabis enthusiasts.
American Green is a publicly traded cannabis company best known for its ID- and age-verifying marijuana vending machines. It also sells non-psychoactive CBD products such as mints, body balm and dog treats.
Shearin said the company has made a $200,000 downpayment and is testing Nipton’s water as part of its due diligence. If all goes well, it will pay an additional $1.8 million in cash and take possession of the property.
The company expects to invest up to $2.5 million more to improve the town’s infrastructure and expand the solar plant to offset the energy demands of marijuana production, Shearin said.
Broker Tony Castignano of Sky Mesa Realty said American Green is a “serious prospective buyer” but cautioned that the property hasn’t been sold.
“This is a legitimate effort to do something significant in this arena. It’s an idea whose time has come.” Stephen Shearin, American Green