View Cresco Labs' inaugural crop of recreational marijuana planted in the video player above.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- A start date has been decided for Ohio's recreational marijuana sales, with at least three dispensaries receiving notice that their paperwork is in order to begin business.
Cresco Labs Chief Communication Officer Jason Erkes told NBC4 that his team had received notice that their Sunnyside Medical Dispensaries were going to get certificates of operation. The final document that all of the state's shops have been waiting on, this gives the locations approval to convert to dual-use and sell recreational marijuana alongside medical.
Erkes confirmed that Marion, Cincinnati and Wintersville locations are set to begin sales on Tuesday, Aug. 6, marking the first dispensaries to have a publicly announced start date. The beginning of sales comes as a milestone, after Ohioans waited nearly a year for the state to iron out vending since voting to legalize recreational marijuana.
Sunnyside has five locations in Ohio, including in Newark and Marion. In March, NBC4 toured its other dispensary in Chillicothe while the company was preparing for recreational sales to begin. Senior Marketing Manager Kierston Powell shared how the company was getting ready to handle both medical and recreational clients.
“From a back-of-house perspective, not much is changing,” Powell said. “From a front-of-house perspective, we’re going to expand, make more space for more people to come in and out of our stores. The process for a shopping experience will be very similar to what a med patient would be experiencing.”
The Ohio Division of Cannabis Control was tasked with the rollout, and in May lawmakers approved its plan to convert medical dispensaries to dual-use sellers. The agency opened an online portal in for the state's shops to apply to sell recreationally, and up to this point dispensaries had only received provisional licenses. These only allowed the recipient to start preparation for sales.
The dispensary isn't the first business to receive a certificate of operation, as multiple cultivators and processing facilities got theirs at the end of July. Cannacore Group's Paula Savchenko called this "typical in most states," as Ohio was apparently trying to get recreational marijuana's supply side running in advance of storefronts. But she didn't think the same of Ohio's dual-use approach.
"As far as the way that the licensing process is currently going, where the existing operators are able to apply for and get additional licenses, that's actually very unique," Savchenko said. "You don't see that in most states, where the existing license holders are getting priority for additional licenses. You typically just see where the existing license holders have the first opportunity to turn over to recreational as opposed to get more licenses."
Cresco -- headquartered in Chicago -- had its Yellow Springs growing facility among those to receive certificates. The company was ready in advance, planting its inaugural crop of marijuana intended for recreational sales in May. Erkes confirmed that his team harvested the crop in July, and packaged products would head to Sunnyside locations for the sales rollout.
