SEATTLE (AP) — Washington state issued its first retail
marijuana licenses Monday a day ahead of the start of legal sales, and
21 hours before the only store licensed to sell in Seattle was set to
open, a line was already forming.
At Cannabis City, where the
owner wasn’t planning to open his doors until noon Tuesday, a
65-year-old retiree named Deb Greene, showed up just before 3 p.m.
Monday. She had a chair, sleeping bag, food, water and a 930-page book.
"I
voted for it, and I’m just so excited to see it come to be in my
lifetime," she said.
"I’m not a heavy user, I’m just proud of our state
for giving this a try."
The start of legal pot sales in
Washington Tuesday marks a major step that’s been 20 months in the
making. Washington and Colorado stunned much of the world by voting in
November 2012 to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, and to create
state-licensed systems for growing, selling and taxing the pot. Sales
began in Colorado on Jan. 1.
Businesses including Cannabis City,
which will be the first and, for now, only recreational marijuana shop
in Seattle, got word early Monday morning from the state that they were
licensed marijuana dealers.
Owner James Lathrop had already worked
into the night Sunday placing no-parking signs in front of his
building, hoisting a grand-opening banner and hanging artwork.
"I’ve had a long day. It really hasn’t sunk in yet," he said.
In
a 2:30 a.m. Pacific time interview with The Associated Press, John
Evich, an investor in Bellingham’s Top Shelf Cannabis, which will also
open Tuesday morning, said they were "pretty stoked."
"We haven’t had any sleep in a long time, but we’re excited for the next step," Evich said.
Randy
Simmons, the state Liquor Control Board’s project manager for legal
marijuana, said the first two dozen stores were notified so early to
give them an extra few hours to get cannabis on their shelves before
they are allowed to open their doors at 8 a.m. Tuesday. The store
openings are expected to be accompanied by high prices, shortages and
celebration.
An AP survey of the licensees showed that only about
six planned to open Tuesday, including two stores in Bellingham, one in
Seattle, one in Spokane, one in Prosser and one in Kelso. Some were set
to open later this week or next, while others said it could be a month
or more before they could acquire marijuana to sell.
Officials eventually expect to have more than 300 recreational pot shops across the state.
As
soon as the stores were notified Monday, they began working to place
their orders with some of the state’s first licensed growers. As soon as
the orders were received, via state-approved software for tracking the
bar-coded pot, the growers could place the product in a required 24-hour
"quarantine" before shipping it early Tuesday morning.
The final
days before sales have been frenetic for growers and retailers alike.
Lathrop and his team hired an events company to provide crowd control,
arranged for a food truck and free water for those who might spend hours
waiting outside, and rented portable toilets to keep his customers from
burdening nearby businesses with requests to use the restrooms.
At
Nine Point Growth Industries, a marijuana grower in Bremerton, owner
Gregory Stewart said he and his director celebrated after they worked
through some glitches in the pot-tracking software early Monday and
officially learned they’d be able to transport their weed 24 hours
later, at 2:22 a.m. Tuesday.
"It’s the middle of the night and
we’re standing here doing high-fives and our version of a happy dance,"
he said. "It’s huge for us."
Pot prices were expected to reach $25
a gram or higher on the first day of sales — twice what people pay in
the state’s unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries. That was largely
due to the short supply of legally produced pot in the state. Although
more than 2,600 people applied to become licensed growers, fewer than
100 have been approved — and only about a dozen were ready to harvest by
early this month.
Nevertheless, Evich said his shop in Bellingham
wanted to thank the state’s residents for voting for the law by
offering $10 grams of one cannabis strain to the first 50 or 100
customers. The other strains would be priced between $12 and $25, he
said.
The store will be open at 8 a.m. Tuesday, he said, but work
remained: trimming the bathroom door, cleaning the floors, wiping dust
off the walls and, of course, stocking the shelves.
At Cannabis City, despite the line already beginning to form, Lathrop wasn’t planning to open before
noon.
"Know your audience: We’re talking stoners here," he said. "I’d be mean to say they need
to get up at 5 a.m. to get in line."