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First cannabis dispensary in Hobbs OK’d

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Gabrielle Arsiaga/News-Sun

The City of Hobbs has approved the first cannabis dispensary in city limits.

Bryan’s Green Care started their application process in 2014 to produce and sell cannabis to medical patients and was denied by the state because the number of state licenses were at the limit.

The business got approved to grow and sell to recreational consumers and medical patients as well.

The first approval — for recreational cannabis — came Feb. 7 during the Hobbs City Commission meeting. Just three days later, on Feb. 10, Victoria Bruce, director of operations of Bryan’s Green Care, received an email from the state approving the request to become a licensed distributor of cannabis for medical patients.

During the Feb. 7 City of Hobbs meeting, commissioners unanimously approved BGC’s production license. The approval is the first approval by the City of Hobbs since the application process opened within the state in September.

BGC Director of Cultivation Logan McIlroy said the approval process in Hobbs was unnecessarily difficult.

“It started with the city’s ordinance that they put into play. The state has a set of rules that are pretty clear cut, and the city had to go and write an ordinance so they felt like they had some sort of control over the industry, and it made it more difficult and costly,” McIlroy said.

“I know some people who worked as utility directors, and they said the requirement for the 10-inch water line mainline is ridiculous. They said that’s never even been heard of, and I’m talking to people who’ve been in the field 30-40 years. It was just a ridiculous way for them to try and control the entire situation and their response was ‘Because we can.’ But just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” BGC CEO Roberta Bruce said. “Water conservation is such an issue with the entire state and that was what they used to manipulate their ordinance, the water conservation techniques.”

After submitting an application to the city, McIlroy said the application was denied due to not having a 10-inch water line connection to the city of Hobbs water services, no renewable energy measures, and no cannabis waste procedures.

“They told us they were going to deny us in the beginning stages no matter what, due to not having that 10-inch water line connection,” said McIlroy.

McIlroy was then left to meet with the City of Hobbs Utilities Board for an appeal hearing on Jan. 6. The business again was denied, due to lack of a 10-inch water line connection, and not having a licensed engineer stamped written opinion of their water conservation.

After meeting with the utility board, McIlroy and his team then went before the City of Hobbs Commission to appeal the City of Hobbs’ Utilities Board’s decision — which ended up being overturned.

The decision was overturned because McIlroy and his team were able to provide city commissioners with a licensed engineer stamped written opinion of their water conservation plan, and show their water usage would not impact the neighborhood’s emergency utilities.

According to McIlroy, the business, located at 201 N. Grimes St., is set to begin selling to medical patients on March 1 and to recreational on April 1.

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