Pot-shop proprietors in Washington state were notified at around 2:30am Monday morning that they would finally be able to open for business.
The state issued licenses to 14 stores in western Washington and 10 stores in the eastern part of the state.
Spokane has three stores. Vancouver, Tacoma and Bellingham each have two stores. Seattle and the other cities on the list have one.
It’s been twenty months in the making, but the issuance of these licenses marked a major step since Washington voter’s approved the legalization of recreational marijuana use for adults 21 and over in November of 2012. The passed legislation created a state-licensed system for growing, selling and taxing the marijuana.
It remained unclear how many of the pot-shops being licensed planned to open on Tuesday. Once the stores received their email notification they were then able to place their orders with some of the state’s first licensed growers. As soon as the orders are 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.
Officials eventually expect to have more than 300 recreational pot shops across the state.
Pot prices were expected to reach $25 a gram or higher on the first day of sales, which is at least twice what people pay in the state’s unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries. That was largely due to the short supply of legally produced marijuana in the state. Although more than 2,600 people applied to become licensed growers, fewer than 100 licenses have been approved – and only about a dozen were ready to harvest this month.
Here they are … the first retail stores to be licensed by the Liquor Control Board to sell marijuana under laws created by voters with the passage of Initiative 502.
- WHIDBEY ISLAND CANNABIS COMPANY — 5826 S KRAMER RD STE, Langley
- WESTSIDE420 RECREATIONAL — 4503 OCEAN BEACH HWY, Longview
- VERDE VALLEY — 4007 MAIN ST, Union Gap
- TOP SHELF CANNABIS – 3857 HANNEGAN RD, Bellingham
- THE HAPPY CROP SHOPPE — 50 ROCK ISLAND RD, East Wenatchee
- SPOKANE GREEN LEAF — 9107 N COUNTRY HOMES BLVD, Spokane
- SPACE – 3111 S PINE ST, Tacoma
- SATORI/INSTANT KARMA — 9301 N DIVISION ST, Spokane
- NEW VANSTERDAM — 6515 E. MILL PLAIN BLVD, Vancouver
- MARGIE’S POT SHOP — 405 E STUEBEN, Bingen
- MAIN STREET MARIJUNA — 2314 MAIN ST, Vancouver
- HIGH TIME STATION — 1448 BASIN ST NW, Ephrata
- GREEN THEORY — 10697 MAIN ST STE B, Bellevue
- GREEN STAR CANNABIS — 1403 N DIVISION ST, Spokane
- FREEDOM MARKET — 820A WESTSIDE HWY, Kelso
- CREATIVE RETAIL MANAGEMENT — 7046 PACIFIC AVE,Tacoma
- CASCADE KROPZ — 19129 SMOKEY POINT BLVD, Arlington
- CANNABIS CITY — 2733 4TH AVE S, Seattle
- BUD HUT — 1123 E STATE ROUTE 532, Camano Island
- AUSTIN LOTT — 29 HORIZON FLATS RD, Winthrop
- ALTITUDE – 260 MERLOT DR, Prosser
- 4US RETAIL — 23251 HWY 20, Okanogan
- 420 CARPENTER — 422 CARPENTER RD, Lacey
- 2020 SOLUTIONS – 2018 IRON ST, Bellingham