First cannabis store in Kennebec County to open this week, as recreational market expands
Courtesy / Sweet Dirt
Sweet Dirt CEO Jim Henry will be among the speakers at MEREDA's webinar focused on the marijuana industry's growth in Maine.
Cannabis company Sweet Dirt plans to open Kennebec County’s first recreational-use marijuana store on Wednesday, as Maine’s new legal market for the drug continues to expand.
Sweet Dirt, based in Eliot, will open its first retail location at 475 Kennedy Memorial Drive, Waterville, and plans three others in central and southern Maine, according to a news release.
The 3,100-square-foot Waterville dispensary, just off Interstate 95, will offer a variety of cannabis products including dried flower, concentrates, edibles and ancillary products from Maine-licensed producers and artisans. Sweet Dirt also offers its own organically farmed cannabis.
"We think residents of and visitors to central Maine will appreciate the warm aesthetic and unparalleled convenience of our Waterville location along with our robust menu of more than a dozen strains plus edibles and concentrates,” said Jessica Oliver, Sweet Dirt senior vice president of cannabis operations, in the news release.
Sweet Dirt was founded in 2015 by Hughes Pope and his wife, Kristin, as a registered medical cannabis dispensary and grower. The company plans to open its second recreational-use store in early 2021 at 1207 Forest Ave. in Portland, in a long-vacant 4,926-square-foot building leased last year.
Another store is planned for Eliot, where Sweet Dirt in January also broke ground on what it called Maine's largest cannabis greenhouse. The 32,800-square-foot, year-round facility, at Sweet Dirt’s headquarters at 495 Harold L. Dow Highway, replaces one destroyed by fire in June 2019.
The Waterville store is one of 13 recreational-use retailers that now hold active licenses in Maine. The state began issuing the first ones in September, four years after Maine voters legalized recreational adult use, and the legal market opened on Oct. 9.
Six licensees began sales that month, and three more opened their doors in November, according to the state’s Office of Marijuana Policy.
For the first month of recreational sales, retailers grossed $1.4 million from 22,000 transactions, state regulators said recently.
Data from the office also show there are dozens of businesses now seeking a license for recreational sales.
The licensing process requires a conditional approval and then another approval from the jurisdiction where a marijuana business is to be sited. An active license is required for businesses to legally possess, process and sell marijuana for recreational use by adults, including initiating plant transfers from Maine’s existing medical marijuana program.
In July, the Waterville City Council voted unanimously to approve Sweet Dirt’s application for its new store.
Sweet Dirt CEO Jim Henry commented in the release: "We look forward to establishing Sweet Dirt as part of the Waterville business community and to bringing jobs to the city, region and state.
"Medical cannabis has long been a strong contributor to revenue in Maine. Legalized, adult use cannabis sales, along with a thriving, local medical cannabis market, will be an economic engine the State desperately needs at this time."
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