Eight companies vying to become the first in Central Florida to cultivate medical marijuana are proposing a wide variety of retail selections, from one central marijuana shop with delivery services to more than a dozen retail locations.
The Florida Department of Health is going over applications to make their decision on which one will be licensed for the Central Florida market. That region encompasses 18 counties and runs from Stuart to Daytona Beach on the Atlantic coast, through Metro Orlando to St. Petersburg to Inverness on the Gulf Coast.
The winning company will get the Central Florida franchise to develop medicines stemming from cannabis that have shown to be useful when treating people with epilepsy and other neurological conditions.
State officials have indicated they hope to award Florida’s five regional licenses later this year, and some applicants say they can have product available for sale within a couple of months of getting the license.
A good amount information was redacted in the applications, as the companies used Florida open-records-law exemptions protecting the release of certain information ranging from security matters to trade secrets.
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Though, in seven of the eight Central Florida applications reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel, enough details were released to contrast plans for where patients will have to go to buy their medicine, one of the key factors being considered by state officials.
At least one company, Treadwell Nursery of Sorrento, plans for the dispensaries to be unmarked and inconspicuous. However, Treadwell said the company likely would start with far fewer, perhaps only three, and expand as needed.
Two companies, McCrory’s Sunny Hill Nursery of Eustis and Razbuton Nursery of Winter Garden, are planning to start with just one retail dispensary, though McCrory’s intends to run delivery vans, and Razbuton is thinking about the same option. “We will build one dispensary to start, but we are able to expand very quickly to supply patients throughout our region and meet demand,”
Everyone plans to expand because the market is expected to start small but has the potential for enormous growth, especially if the state law is switched to expand the list of allowable medicines and patient conditions. Knox Nursery of Apopka, for example, plans an Orlando pharmacy near Florida Hospital’s downtown campus, plus similar locations in Winter Garden and Tampa.
Don Clifford, spokesman for McCrory’s, stated it was a task to figure out where to put marijuana shops at this point because the customer base is likely to start small, and at this point no one knows where they are located. His company plans to develop one retail site in Lake Wales, plus delivery vans to offer door-to-door service throughout the region. As the market becomes clearer, then the company can better select where to open marijuana shops, he said. All the companies face a similar challenge.
“This is so new for everyone that no one is really sure how quick this is going to fly,” said Robert DeLeon, president of DeLeon’s Bromeliads of Mount Dora, which proposed three dispensaries in the Tampa Bay area, one in Kissimmee and one in Palm Coast.
Another challenge is competition.
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