Deadwood approves four medical marijuana dispensary licenses

“These are four applicants that have met all criteria of our ordinances,” said Deadwood Finance Officer Jessicca McKeown. “As everybody knows, we’ve been working on those for several months, into the prior year. The Form E that’s in your packet – these applicants are very, very thick. This is the document we send to the state before they come back and get the final city approval. These four applicants, as you see in your packets, I list each one of them. They meet the zoning requirements. They have done everything, as far as obtaining permits, licenses, and fees. These have been sent on to the state. We actually give it to the applicant. They send it to the state. Then the state sends it back to the applicant. At this time, all four of these are still in the state’s hands, as far as processing. But once they come back, we then will need to issue the city license, we will pay the remaining fees and make sure they have their business licenses. Because we’re so far on this step, we want to make sure that you have approved them here, so when they come in, we can go ahead and issue their city licenses.”

McKeown said, to be very clear, these are for medical marijuana only.

“If any of these applicants want to come back and get any of the additional licenses, they would go back through that process,” McKeown said.

Deadwood Legal Counsel Quentin Riggins said because there has been some delay in the state issuing the licenses, he reached out to the attorney for the Department of Health, who is handling issuance of these licenses.

“She indicated to me that we could approve these pending state approval so that we could keep things moving,” Riggins said.  “That’s what we chose to do.”

McKeown reiterated the next step is for the businesses to get their state license, bring it to the city, and then the city would issue a city license.

Commissioner Gary Todd asked what the procedure is for the state, as far as inspections and to make sure the businesses follow the criteria set forth.

“Is the state going to do the inspection or is the city?” Todd asked.

Riggins said the state does the inspections prior to issuance of the license and will follow-up to make sure there are no violations of the law.

“That’s part of the statute,” he said.

McKeown emphasized that the approvals are subject to state approval.

“It will not leave our office until that occurs,” McKeown said.

Riggins said there was no indication on time frame for license approval from the state.

“They didn’t give me any information,” Riggins said. “I asked, myself. They said they didn’t know.”