Lehigh Valley residents soon will be able to visit shops in Allentown and Bethlehem Township, where for the first time medicinal pills, oils, creams and more made from marijuana will be legally dispensed.
That’s because on Thursday, the Pennsylvania Department of Health issued its first medical marijuana dispensary permits — 27 across the state — with the Lehigh Valley landing two, at 2733 W. Emmaus Ave. in south Allentown and 2467 Baglyos Circle in Lehigh Valley Industrial Park VI, Bethlehem Township.
Mission Pennsylvania II, an Arizona company, has a permit to open the dispensary in Allentown, while GuadCo, of Brooklyn, N.Y., has a permit to open a dispensary called Keystone Canna Remedies at 1309 Stefko Blvd., Bethlehem, though a GuadCo representative said Thursday the company actually plans to locate the first dispensary at the LVIP site in Bethlehem Township — where the township has already granted the company a conditional use permit.
“We’re very happy and very excited to get to work,” said Victor Guadagnino Jr., who is starting the dispensary with his father, a cardiologist and internist, and his aunt, who runs a nonprofit to fight a rare and fatal genetic disorder that affects children. “We are a mom-and-pop organization, and health care-focused. … We want to make sure that’s translated into the new industry.”
The 27 dispensary permit holders now have six months in which to become operational, before they can begin dispensing medical marijuana.
“This has been a highly competitive process and the department received hundreds of quality applications,” said John Collins, director of the Office of Medical Marijuana. “Once this program is fully operational, patients with serious medical conditions will have locations throughout the commonwealth where they can purchase medication to help in their treatment. We remain on track to provide medication to patients in 2018.”
The dispensaries are prohibited from selling marijuana flowers, whole plants or edible products.
State law permits the use of medical marijuana to treat 17 serious health conditions. It can be dispensed as pills, oils, topical creams or a liquid that can be vaporized and inhaled, but not in a leaf form that can be smoked. Patients suffering from those ailments need a doctor’s recommendation before getting a certification enabling them to buy medicinal cannabis from a dispensary. Patients must be Pennsylvania residents.
The law allows the Health Department to issue up to 50 dispensary permits, but it chose to limit permits to 27 in this first phase.
Each of the 27 dispensary permit holders is eligible to open three locations in their given region, though each store must be in a different county. Both Mission and GuadCo have opted not to open second and third locations at this time, according to the Health Department.
No other permit recipients plan to open secondary locations in the Lehigh Valley.
There will be 52 dispensaries that will open throughout the state sometime next year. A complete list of locations is available on the Health Department’s website.
The Health Department announced the first 12 recipients of grower and processor permits June 20, and Lehigh Valley applicants were shut out.Regionally, two Berks County businesses won licenses, as did a company in Luzerne County and one in Lackawanna County.The Department of Health released all applicant scorecards and partially redacted applications for the permit recipients.
GuadCo earned 620.4 out of 1,000 points, the third-lowest score among dispensary permittees. Mission Pennsylvania II scored 648. Some rejected northeast region applicants scored higher because Lehigh and Northampton counties were automatically allocated one dispensary each.
Bethlehem Township gave GuadCo a thumbs-up earlier this month to operate a dispensary out of a 4,726-square-foot building in the Lehigh Valley Industrial Park VI, off Emrick Boulevard near the William Penn Highway and Route 33 intersection.
Guadagnino said the site was appealing because of its proximity to Interstate 78 and the medical community.
The company didn’t list the Baglyos location as its primary dispensary address on its application because it didn’t have a lease when the application was filed, Guadagnino said. He added that the company notified the Health Department as soon as its plans to change locations solidified.
A Health Department spokesperson wasn’t available to comment about the discrepancy on Thursday afternoon.
Assuming GuadCo can proceed, its facility will be divided into three areas: a lobby, where anyone can walk in and obtain educational information about the state’s medical marijuana program; a patient area behind a security door where patients can buy the drug at a dispensing counter; and a restricted access area for everything else.
Guadagnino expects to hire five or six people initially.
The Mission Pennsylvania II location is in a West Emmaus Avenue shopping center owned by Barthom Holdings just south of I-78, near the Emmaus border.
Representatives of Mission Pennsylvania were not available to comment Thursday. Unlike GuadCo’s application, basic information about the principals, financial backers and operators of the Mission Pennsylvania business was redacted.
The state Department of Health received 280 applications for dispensary permits, including 45 applications in the northeast region.
Applicants had to pay a $5,000 application fee plus a $30,000 deposit per dispensary. Rejected applicants will get the deposit back.
Elsewhere in the northeast region, Columbia Care Pennsylvania will open dispensaries in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Blakeslee, Monroe County.
Justice Grown Pennsylvania will open a dispensary in Edwardsville, Luzerne County.
In the southeast region, SMPB Retail will open a dispensary in Reading, and Franklin Bioscience-Penn will open dispensaries in Muhlenberg Township, Berks County.
TerraVida Holistic Centers will open a dispensary in Sellersville, Bucks County.
credit:mcall.com
