Marijuana company acquires 3 shops

Harvest Health and Recreation, Arizona’s biggest medical-marijuana operator, said on Wednesday it has acquired three shops run by competitor Arizona Natural Selections, giving Harvest 14 of the 120 or so operating retail stores in the state.

The companies didn’t disclose the price, other than to say Tempe-based Harvest acquired the licenses for a “non-material” amount of stock in the company, which trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange as well as the overthe-counter market in the U.S.

Marijuana dispensary licenses are worth millions in Arizona today and are poised to leap in value this November if voters approve a ballot measure to allow adult, recreational use of the drug.

Harvest is the biggest backer of the

“Smart and Safe Arizona” ballot initiative, which would mostly limit recreational sales to the existing medical facilities in the state.

After voters approved the Medical Marijuana Act in 2010, the Department of Health Services issued dispensary licenses in two lotteries to qualified nonprofit organizations that applied to the program.

While the DHS has a rule that says “a dispensary may not transfer or assign” its license, several large companies like Harvest have acquired control of multiple licenses and DHS has not interfered with those deals.

The deal announced Thursday puts the Arizona Natural Selections stores in Peoria, Scottsdale and Mesa under the control of Harvest. A fourth license included in the deal with Natural Selections doesn’t yet have an operating dispensary, and it can be used anywhere in the state, Howe said.

Harvest spokesman

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Including pending acquisitions, Harvest will now actually have a total of 22 licenses in Arizona, according to the company.

“We are excited to further deepen our operations in our home state of Arizona expanding our cultivation, processing, and retail operations,” Harvest CEO Steve White said in a press release.

Harvest is well ahead of Arizona’s second-largest dispensary operator in terms of number of locations. Curaleaf Holdings Inc. of Wakefield, Massachusetts, has five retail sites in Arizona.

In Arizona, licenses for medical-marijuana facilities allow a dispensary to

grow marijuana both onsite and at one additional location.

Harvest’s deal with Arizona Natural Selections includes a 55,000-squarefoot grow house in Phoenix and a Willcox farm that has 25 acres zoned for marijuana and a 70,000-square-foot greenhouse, according to the company.

Harvest already had a Camp Verde farm for its Arizona product before the Natural Selections deal.

Expansion occurring across U.S.

Harvest is expanding nationally as well, with aspirations of cementing its position as the largest retail operator of medical and recreational marijuana in the country.

Harvest has various acquisitions in the works across the nation. If all the deals go through, the company reports it will have the rights to operate about 130 retail locations with more than 1,700 employees across 18 states and territories.

On Monday, Harvest announced opening its first Arkansas retail site in Little Rock.

But the expansion hasn’t always been smooth. Last month, Harvest sued California-based Falcon International Corp., a large marijuana company it had announced a deal with a year ago.

In return, Falcon requested a $50 million break-up fee for the broken deal.