In Good Health, first medical marijuana dispensary in Sandwich, to open soon
SANDWICH — The first medical marijuana facility in town is expected to be open for business by late spring.
“We are excited to open,” said David Noble, president and CEO of Brockton-based In Good Health Inc., who has been working for four years to get permitting for the Sandwich project. “Very happy the town let us proceed with this.”
The medical marijuana dispensary is located at 449 Route 130, in three vacant office condos in a medical building. Construction on the facility is completed and the occupancy permit recently obtained from the town, with the provisional inspection and license from the Cannabis Control Commission the last step, Noble said.
Customers will be able to walk in and press a button, and security officials will check for a medical marijuana card and a valid form of ID before allowing them to proceed.
The store will sell about 150 different varieties of marijuana, which will be mostly Good Heath’s own product, Noble said, and a number of edibles.
“We hope to capture a lot of Cape business we lost,” said Noble by phone on Thursday. When there were limited supplies on the Cape, “people were driving over an hour to get to us,” he said, but when more stores opened on this side of the bridge, many of those customers were no longer willing to make that trip. In Good Health has operated its Brockton processing facility and retail dispensary since 2015.
“As the state continues to roll places out, (deciding where to buy) is going to be a convenience factor,” Noble said. “No one is driving an hour anymore for recreational (or medical) marijuana.”
The Sandwich store will be open seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and serve about five or six patients an hour. The facility will employ about 15 people and will be set up to follow social distancing guidelines.
Home delivery will also be available for those who are disabled, older or don’t feel comfortable visiting the store.
The aim is to have the Sandwich location serve as a second delivery hub, Noble said. Currently, his business has around 500 patients who opt for home delivery.
More:Cannabis commission approves marijuana home delivery
In Good Health Inc. will join a few other medical and recreational marijuana facilities in the region, including Triple M, a medical marijuana facility on Echo Road in Mashpee that recently applied for its state recreational permit, and Verilife, a medical and recreational marijuana operation in Wareham.
B/well and Curaleaf are both in Provincetown and are both medical and recreational facilities. A few other marijuana stores are in the pipeline as well for the Outer Cape.
One day, Noble hopes that Sandwich will reverse its ban on recreational marijuana, saying those sales could create good revenue for the town.
“I would love to open a recreational shop,” Noble said. “But I’ll leave that up to the town.”
In Good Health filed a special permit request for the medical dispensary
The state has issued a license to In Good Health, which allowed the company to file for a special permit request for the medical dispensary with the Sandwich Zoning Board of Appeals. The board approved a special permit in October. The company had obtained a letter of non-opposition from the Sandwich Board of Selectmen in June 2019 and entered a community host agreement with the town on June 2020.
More:Sandwich medical marijuana shop approved
The town's special permit has a number of conditions attached related to traffic signage, and that adequate sight lines for cars entering and exiting the parking lot need to be maintained.
The company also submitted a traffic study that showed the business would not have a significant impact on traffic in the area.
As a state-mandated condition of the host community agreement, 3% of In Good Health’s annual sales will go back to the town. That will amount to between $75,000 and $125,000, Noble previously told selectmen.
The company also will pay the town 0.5% of its annual gross sales toward local substance abuse prevention efforts, according to the host agreement.
The local In Good Health dispensary will not offer recreational marijuana sales, because Sandwich voters in 2017 approved a ban on recreational marijuana businesses by a wide margin.
The medical marijuana facility is located within the town’s Medical Marijuana Overlay District, which was approved by the May 2015 annual town meeting.
Contact Beth Treffeisen at btreffeisen@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @BTreffeisenCCT.