Greenlight medical marijuana dispensary seeks green light

What will likely be Cape Girardeau’s first medical marijuana dispensary is one step closer to opening following an on-site inspection Tuesday.

Developers of the Greenlight dispensary, 1001 Broadway, hope to receive a “green light” from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) in time for an opening sometime next week.

“We could get it (approval) two days from now or two weeks from now,” said Greenlight CEO John Mueller of Kansas City, Missouri, who was in Cape Girardeau for Tuesday’s compliance inspection.

The Greenlight building at the intersection of Broadway and Harmony Street was originally a service station and has housed several businesses over the years. For its latest purpose, the building has been remodeled to include reception, sales, storage and product preparation areas.

Glass cases in the sales area, similar to those found in jewelry stores, will soon display a variety of marijuana-infused products ranging from cannabis flowers, pre-rolls and edibles.

A pair of DHSS compliance officers toured the building Tuesday, ascertaining Greenlight is in compliance with all of Missouri’s medical marijuana dispensary regulations.

“It’s a pretty extensive list,” said compliance officer Lucas Touchette as he and fellow inspector Stephen Marr walked through and photographed all areas of the dispensary.

Although final approval must come from DHSS, Touchette said based on Tuesday’s compliance inspection it appeared Greenlight is “good to go.”

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services compliance officer Stephen Marr photographs Greenlight medical marijuana dispensary complance director Krystal Wright as she holds a copy of Greenlight's operations manual during a DHSS compliance inspection Tuesday of the Cape Girardeau dispensary.Jay Wolz

To receive state approval, medical marijuana dispensaries must demonstrate they meet or exceed a lengthy list of DHSS requirements, such as, but not limited to, facility layout and security, product tracking, operational policies, employee training, records maintenance and more.

Thirty-one video cameras at Greenlight give the dispensary staff — as well as regulators in Jefferson City — the ability to observe customer and staff areas inside the building as well as Greenlight’s exterior.

Dispensaries are required to store video files for at least 60 days, “plus we have to track every gram of product we have in the building, when it arrives and how it got here,” Mueller said.

Most, if not all, of Greenlight’s initial inventory will come from the company’s 96,000-square-foot cultivation and manufacturing facility in the Kansas City area.

Greenlight’s Cape Girardeau dispensary is among 11 the company is opening throughout Missouri and is one of four the company plans to operate in Southeast Missouri, with the others in Sikeston, Poplar Bluff and Hayti. Commencement inspections have been completed at the Sikeston and Poplar Bluff facilities and Mueller said he hopes to schedule a state inspection at the Hayti location “in the next week or so.”

Cape Girardeau Investments LLC, consisting of several area business people, holds 75% ownership of the Greenlight dispensaries in Southeast Missouri.

“They don’t want to be in the spotlight,” Mueller said when asked to identify the dispensary’s owners, saying only the investors have been “great partners” and include physicians who support the use of marijuana products for medicinal purposes.

Pending final state approval, Greenlight in Cape Girardeau could have a “soft opening” by the middle of next week, according to Krystal Wright, Greenlight’s director of compliance.

Once open, Greenlight will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, Wright said. Entry and sales will be limited to patients with a variety of qualifying conditions who have received medical marijuana use permits. According to the most recent DHSS data, between 1,000 and 3,000 people in the Cape Girardeau area had received permits as of the end of November.

At least two more dispensaries — one on North Kingshighway and one in Jackson — plan to open in February. In addition to those, two other dispensaries have been licensed in Cape Girardeau, but have not announced specific opening plans.

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