Portland, Maine, received 43 cannabis dispensary applications last month for the city’s 20 available retail licenses, but a preliminary staff review has found that a dozen of the applicants could be disqualified for not meeting basic requirements such as paying city taxes and fees on time, according to the Portland Press Herald.

The 12 applicants could be disqualified for not having a conditional state cannabis license, being more than 30 days late on paying a local tax or fee in the last five years, having unresolved land-use violations, or planning to operate a dispensary too close to a school or in the wrong zoning district, the news outlet reported.

Portland issued pre-denial letters to the disqualified applicants Sept. 25, according to the Portland Press Herald, and the applicants have 10 days to challenge the disqualification.

The city is still deciding how or if it will be able to use its scoring matrix to award the 20 dispensary licenses, the news outlet reported.

Although Portland approved its local cannabis ordinance in May, its residency bonus for license applicants who have lived in Maine for at least four years was challenged in court by non-local cannabis operator Wellness Connection of Maine, and a federal judge ruled last month that Portland cannot prioritize local businesses in its licensing process.

Michigan issued its first cannabis microbusiness license this month to Onaway’s Sticky Bush Farms, which is now preparing to transition from the state’s caregiver market to adult-use sales.

The vertically integrated license, meant for smaller craft operators, will allow the company to grow up to 150 plants that can be processed into oil, edibles and other products for sale in an adult-use storefront.

“The microbusiness license allows us to be able to do pretty much everything under one roof,” Sticky Bush Farms owner Ben Kolasa tells Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary, adding that the company will grow, process and sell its cannabis in the same building it has been using to serve the caregiver market.

Licensed microbusinesses must be self-contained and cannot acquire cannabis products from third-party cultivators, processors or retailers. Likewise, the licensees cannot sell any products to other licensed businesses along the supply chain.

Sticky Bush Farms plans to bring flower, concentrates, edibles and rosins to Michigan’s adult-use market, and Kolasa sees vertical integration as a key advantage.

“We can control everything we do,” he says. “We really just wanted to be able to … focus on growing the best quality cannabis that we can. … That’s kind of why we got the license, because it was smaller. We could hopefully make it more of a craft business instead of just growing a lot of plants.”

The licensing process required Kolasa to receive municipal approval from Onaway before seeking state approval, and although it was a long process, he says the state was helpful along the way.

Now, with a final license in hand, Sticky Bush Farms team members are focused on tagging all of their plants to log them in the Metrc seed-to-sale tracking system, as well as preparing the storefront for opening day, which is slated for November.

The biggest challenge, Kolasa says, will be preparing the facility’s lab and kitchen to produce concentrates and edibles.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we’re just pushing forward little by little,” he says.

Overall, Kolasa says he is excited to pave the way for the state’s craft cannabis market as Michigan’s first microbusiness license holder.

“I think it’ll … help the smaller guy out a lot to not have to hopefully spend as much money [on the license],” he says. “They can focus, just like we want to do, on bringing a craft cannabis market. … Competition is good and … I just think it’ll be cool for the market to be able to see all the different little places open up and what people have to offer.”

Looking ahead, Kolasa wants to expand slowly, once the Sticky Bush Farms team has a chance to assess the market.

In the shorter-term, the company is determining which cannabis varieties to cultivate for its expanded customer base.

“We’ve been doing that for a while,” Kolasa says. “We do have strains that we’ve been running for a while, but we’re always going through more to try to find something better, something cool. I’m sure we’ll have some that just stay around, and then there’ll be a revolving wheel [of others]. Testing is kind of expensive, so we’re not going to do a whole lot of strains right off the bat. Plus, we can’t focus on a whole lot of strains at once. That’s … why the smaller [plant] count is kind of cool, so we can focus on those ones that really matter.”

Eventually, the company will look to hire additional staff and add on to its current facility to support additional product categories.

“We definitely have to add on,” Kolasa says. “We need to get to a spot where we can do our concentrates, [and] we need a spot for edibles. We want to be able to provide everything, so people can come in and get whatever they want."

Beehives Own is preparing to open its flagship dispensary in Utah’s medical cannabis market, with the company’s first Beehives Farmacy location opening the first week of October in Salt Lake City.

Beehives Own first applied for a cultivation license in Utah, and while its application ranked in ninth place, the state ultimately decided to issue eight cultivation licenses instead of the 10 that were permitted under state law. The company then focused on the retail side of the market and won two of Utah’s 14 available dispensary licenses.

RELATED: Beehives Own Works to Open Its Medical Cannabis Dispensaries in Utah to Combat State’s Opioid Epidemic: The Starting Line

After the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beehives Own planned to open its first dispensary location in August, but the coronavirus crisis caused construction delays and last-minute changes to the store design and buildout.

“We have a really solid crew [and] we’re fortunate to be doing a buildout and able to work around any of the setbacks we’ve faced, whether it’s COVID-related, material-related or just general things you learn as you’re doing the buildout,” founding partner Bijan Sakaki told Cannabis Dispensary.

Beehives Own will celebrate a soft opening for its Salt Lake City store, inviting family and industry friends to an open house. The dispensary will also coordinate with some of its vendors to offer specific promotions on opening day.

“So many friends and family are curious,” Sakaki’s partner, Paul Henderson, said. “They’ve never been into a cannabis pharmacy or dispensary, so this will be the first time they will experience this.”

The company’s flagship Salt Lake City location will offer both in-store and drive-thru sales.

“We have a three-lane drive-thru at the Salt Lake location, so we’re hoping that will help expedite some of the more frequent buyers,” Sakaki said.

State law requires first-time patients to have an initial consultation with one of the dispensary’s pharmacists, which Henderson said is a bottleneck in Utah’s market.

“There are a lot of people who want to buy, but there are limited outlets to be able to go do that consultation,” he said. “We actually beefed up our retail store to add more spots to be able to do in-person and virtual conversations. If somebody comes in, they can even sit in front of the camera with one of our pharmacists, who are remote. We’re really trying to provide a lot of options and a lot of time slots for patients to come in and do those consultations so then they can start buying.”

During the one-on-one consultations, pharmacists discuss specific types of products and dosages with patients to determine what might work best for them and their specific medical condition.

Beehives Own is working closely with some of Utah’s Qualified Medical Providers (QMPs), physicians who have registered with the state to recommend medical cannabis to their patients, to educate them on product offerings and dosing.

“These are traditional doctors who are … able to sign up as these Qualified Medical Providers, but a lot of them just don’t know what they should be talking to their patients about,” Henderson said. “These doctors take this very seriously, so it’s really on us to provide that type of education [about] how the doctors should be talking to their patients about this. The patient might do research and come in and want to talk about it, but the doctor has to be comfortable with making the recommendations on how to consume and where to go and all of that, so that’s really the piece we’re trying to hit.”

Beehives Own will also invite vendors into the dispensary to speak with patients about their specific brands and products.

“We’ve also worked with a couple other groups to put together what we call a ‘patient journal,’ which will educate the patients [on], what is the endocannabinoid system? What are the different cannabinoids out there? What are terpenes?” Sakaki said. “We’re allowing them to keep their information at their discretion in a notebook for themselves. Say, for instance, this product from this pharmacy made them feel this way and it took this long for them to feel the effects and they like that. That’s something they can log and they can take with them to any pharmacy they go to and use that as a good baseline to help navigate their journey, whether it’s through a consultation with a pharmacist or them knowing, ‘These kinds of products work for me and these other products don’t work for me.’”

The COVID Question

Moving forward, Beehives Own will continue to take precautions as the COVID-19 pandemic persists. The company will check employees’ temperatures, require staff and patients to wear masks while inside the store, and will provide hand sanitizer to both employees and customers.

The Salt Lake City store has a dedicated entrance and exit for patients to both optimize traffic flow and promote social distancing. There are also markers on the floor to remind people to maintain 6 feet of space between themselves and others.

“We were … kind of fortunate to be in the design phase when COVID hit,” Henderson said, adding that adjustments were made to maximize social distancing in the waiting room, on the sales floor and around the registers.

“It’s not something that’s going away for the foreseeable future, so I think if we build to suit to these standards, … people will see that and appreciate that,” Sakaki added. “We don’t want to compromise anyone’s health when they’re trying to come here to get something for their wellness. We’re not trying to compromise that whole experience for them.”

Onward to Brigham City

Once the Salt Lake City store is up and running, Beehives Own plans to open its second location in Brigham City by the end of the year.

“We’re trying to make sure we get that store up and running as soon as we can after Salt Lake, and hopefully that gives us time to bring in staff that’s experienced in Salt Lake to help open Brigham City,” Sakaki said.

Brigham City is a much smaller town than Salt Lake City, he added, but is situated near the Idaho border where many commuters pass through.

Beehives Own’s retail license allows for home delivery, and once the Utah Department of Health establishes rules and regulations for the delivery program, Sakaki aims to reach more patients through online orders and home delivery.

In the shorter-term, Sakaki and Henderson aim to not only open and operate both of their dispensary locations, but to also offer a variety of product options for the state’s patient base.

“These products that we’re going to be offering to our patients are ones that we would feel confident selling to our family members, our loved ones,” Sakaki said.

In the longer-term, the Beehives Own team would like to take their experience in Utah and expand to other medical cannabis markets.

“There are a handful of other states that will come online for medical, and we think we’ll be able to use our expertise and potentially be able to look at expansion, taking our model here in Utah to some other markets,” Henderson said, adding that the Beehives Own team is pleased with how the Utah market has been implemented.

“We’ve been involved in some other markets, and it can’t be overstated that Utah’s actually done a really great job. The Department of Ag and the Department of Health are trying to get it right and making sure that they do the regulations really well, think through it all and take input from the industry."