Seven marijuana dispensaries in progress in Saline

There are no fewer than seven companies at various points in the application process to set up brick-and-mortar marijuana dispensaries in the city of Saline alone. The Saline City Council approved the penultimate stage in the application of one of those businesses on September 12 for High Society Dispensary to establish their location medicinal and adult use marijuana dispensary at 465 East Michigan Avenue.

“We’re establishing in a lot of different markets. Saline was definitely one of them that we wanted to get in touch with. We believe there is a high concentration of people who are cannabis consumers in the area, and [we’re filling that need],” High Society’s Aswem Zbair told the Sun Times News. When asked why they chose Saline, Zbair said “It’s a lack of cannabis vendors in the city. It’s just like a city that doesn’t have a bar, and people love going to the bar, so you want to open up a bar in the city.”

All they need now is a final site plan approval from the Planning Commission and they will be ready to set up shop. This could be their second location. They are also looking to expand in Lenox and East Lansing. Zbair said that the venture will take around 90 days after final approval to open for business and they expect to have between 15 and 20 full-time employees in Saline.

According to City Manager Colleen O’Toole, two medicinal marijuana establishments are already open at 751 West Michigan Avenue and 660 East Michigan Avenue. All applicants are applying for both medicinal and adult use licenses to sell cannabis, according to city records.

What is noteworthy is the variety of scale of businesses that are applying. Some companies like Higher Breed, are smaller ones who are looking to set up only their second location anywhere at 731 West Michigan Avenue. Other larger companies, like Lume, are much larger regional operations.

“There’s a mix. Some of them, like Lume, has [more of] a regional presence than others,” O’Toole said in an interview by phone. “But some of them are smaller.”

Lume is looking to set up their adult-use and medicinal marijuana shop in Saline at 1080 East Michigan Avenue. They already have 32 brick-and-mortar establishments across Michigan; including in Ann Arbor, Adrian, and Monroe. The company declined to comment for this article in an email “at this time.”

The other applicants for medicinal and adult use medical establishments are Exclusive Brands at 121 Sage Court, near Faurecia Interior Systems. The Woods Saline at 7608 East Michigan Avenue; dba Pincanna at 813 West Michigan Avenue; and AM & BH Industries at 751 West Michigan Avenue. These companies did not respond to requests for comment.

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