All three companies building dispensaries for medical marijuana in the Spindle City will apply to sell marijuana recreationally as well.
CannaTech Medicinals; Hope, Heal, Health; and Northeast Alternatives will all be in the running for licenses to grow and sell marijuana for the recreational market. Recreational sales are scheduled to start July 1.
“As a dispensary, we want to make sure we provide as many options as possible for our clients and our patients,” said Will Flanagan, the former mayor, who is the point person for Hope, Heal, Health.
“We will apply for a license,” said Dr. Henry Crowley, president of CannaTech Medicinals. “Whatever the community agrees to with the adult use of cannabis, we will conform to that.”
“I’m sure we will have to be competitive with whatever the market will do,” said Chris Harkins of Northeast Alternatives.
The application process opened Monday at noon to certain businesses that qualify for expedited review according to the Boston Globe, including ‘medical marijuana dispensaries that are already open or have a provisional permit, and so-called economic empowerment applicants — companies that are either led by, employ or benefit communities that had high rates of arrests for drug crimes.’
CannaTech Medicinals is building a 50,000-square-foot growing facility and processing laboratory in the biopark on Innovation Way. It is also building a dispensary off Hartwell Street.
Hope, Heal, Health, a company from Warren, Rhode Island, is converting 50,000 square feet of space in the former Border City Mills at 1 West St. for a facility to grow and process marijuana and sell it from a dispensary.
Northeast Alternatives is currently converting a former strip mall at 999 William S. Canning Blvd. to be a dispensary, grow house and processing laboratory.
All three companies hope to be open by July 1.
Two other companies, the Haven Center and Xiphias Wellness, also have licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. They have not yet begun work on their proposed facilities.
Voters in the state approved a referendum question in 2016 approving the recreational use and sale of marijuana. The state Cannabis Control Commission set regulations in March to govern the emerging market.
Companies with licenses to grow and sell medical marijuana were allowed to submit applications on Monday for a license to sell recreational marijuana.
It could be lucrative for Fall River. The state will allow host communities to collect a 4 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales.
State officials say they will be ready to begin granting licenses before the July 1 date they set to open the recreational marijuana market.
