The Liquor and Cannabis board approved a recreational marijuana business last week for a space at Twelve Trees Business Park in North Kitsap.
The new producer/processor is called Sound Extracts.
It’s the twelfth marijuana production company licensed in the county. Unlike retail licenses, there is no cap on the number of producer and processor licenses the state will approve.
The Liquor and Cannabis Board approved two
recreational marijuana stores off Mile Hill Drive this month,
bringing the Port Orchard area’s total to six.
Both new retailers appear to be just outside city limits. (Click on the image at right to see all six locations.)
A store called Fillabong was approved March 10 for a space at 4978 SE Mile Hill Drive. Fillabong also had a Silverdale location licensed in February.
This week, the board approved a shop at 1762 Village Lane SE, in the South Park Village retail center. Its name: A Recreational Marijuana Store.
The addition of the Port Orchard Fillabong and A Recreational Marijuana Store raise Kitsap’s count of marijuana retailers to 13.
Four Port Orchard stores are already operating along the Bethel Road corridor (though one is currently suspended).
The state will allow a total of 20 marijuana retail outlets in Kitsap, meaning there are seven licenses still up for grabs, including five in the county at large.
About 40 applicants are vying for the remaining slots. An application period for retail licenses closes March 31.
How are Kitsap’s existing marijuana shops faring? Here’s an updated look at sales trends:
The state has nine marijuana licenses left to issue in Kitsap County and nearly 40 applicants are vying to receive them.
The Liquor and Cannabis Board opened a new application period for retail licenses in October, as the state laid the ground work for rolling the medical marijuana industry into the recreational system.
The board announced Monday it would stop taking applications at the end of March.
As of Tuesday, 37 retail applications were pending in Kitsap (see map above). The state will allow 20 total retail outlets in the county. Eleven licenses have already been issued, leaving nine to dole out.
Here’s a breakdown of applications and license allotments by jurisdiction:
Applications are being processed under three priority tiers, according to a Liquor and Cannabis Board release:
Since October, the board has received 162 priority 1 applications, 63 priority 2 applications and 879 priority 3 applications with 166 still awaiting prioritization, according to the release.
I corrected the license allocation graphic in this post to reflect a second Bainbridge Island application. Both island applications are for the same Miller Bay Road address.
A recreational marijuana store is finally coming to Kitsap’s commercial hub.
The state Liquor and Cannabis Board has approved a Silverdale store called Fillabong, located at 2839 NW Kitsap Place, just east of the mall. It’s the first recreational store approved in Central Kitsap, though there are a few medical dispensaries in the area.
The addition of Fillabong brings Kitsap’s count of licensed pot stores to 11 (not counting the Suquamish Tribe’s Agate Dreams). The state plans to issue 20 retail licenses in the county.
Another 11 marijuana producers and processors are licensed in
Kitsap.
A marijuana processor established in Port Townsend is moving to Kingston.
The state Liquor and Cannabis Board approved a location change for processor THC Express on Wednesday.
THC Express was located off Highway 20, just south of Port Townsend. It will shift its operation to a business park at 26121 Calvary Lane, off Bond Road.
THC Express is the 22nd recreational marijuana business in Kitsap, joining the county’s 10 established producer/processors and 11 retailers. It’s the first in the county to hold only a processor license. Other processors in Kitsap are also licensed as producers (growers).
In other cannabis news, retail sales of recreational marijuana dipped slightly in January, according to state records.
Click here for more marijuana industry posts.
Salespeople have to know their product, whether they’re selling cars or selling marijuana.
To make sure its staff are knowledgeable about its wares, one recreational marijuana store in Kitsap has been providing employees with free samples.
According to a blogpost on Forbes, Bainbridge Island’s Paper & Leaf provides “budtenders” with samples of the cannabis strains and edibles the store carries. Employees try the products at home and report back. The store even set up a private Facebook group where workers post their reviews.
“They post about the scent of the product, the potency, how it makes them feel,” said Hill.
“Most of our employees have been with us since we opened last June, so they know the information that customers are looking for,” he said.
Staff reviewers will use lingo like “gave me couch-lock,” “relaxing,” “euphoric,” “uplifting” or “made me kind of nervous,” in their reviews for each other.
According to the blog post, the state’s rules regarding free employee samples are murky. You can read the full Forbes story here.
Marijuana shops keep sprouting in the south end of Kitsap County.
Thursday the state Liquor and Cannabis Board approved a license for a recreational marijuana retailer called GreenX3, located at 4235 Olympic Drive W in Gorst.
Just last week a shop called Legal Marijuana Superstore got the green light on Bethel Road.
The addition of GreenX3 brings Kitsap’s count of legal retailers to 10 (not including a tribal store in Suquamish). The state plans to issue up to 20 retail licenses in the county.
There are another 10 licensed producers/processors in the county.
Zoom in on the map above to see all the county’s licensed marijuana businesses.
Kitsap County’s first slump
in legal marijuana sales proved short lived.
Revenue from licensed recreational marijuana stores rebounded in December, after dipping in November for the first time since the launch of the fledgling industry.
Statewide sales followed a similar trend, according to stats released this month by the state Liquor and Cannabis Board.
In Kitsap, eight shops reported a combined $1,439,266 in gross sales in December, marking a 10 percent gain from November. The county finished the calendar year with about $11.71 million in retail marijuana sales.
Like stats? Check out my big
page of embeddable Kitsap County
infographics.
A “Legal Marijuana Superstore” will become Port Orchard’s fourth recreational pot outlet.
The state Liquor and Cannabis Board approved the retailer Dec. 30. The store is located at 3610 Bethel Road SE.
A representative at Legal Marijuana Superstore said the company was still completing the buildout of its space and expected to open in about a month.
Legal Marijuana Superstore joins a cluster of retailers already established along the Bethel Corridor. Greenway Marijuana, Pot Zone (formerly Crockpot) and 420 Spot Shop all operate in the area.
The new store is Kitsap’s tenth legal marijuana retailer, including a tribally-owned store that opened this winter. Another 10 producers and processors are licensed in the county. (Zoom in on the map above to see all the business locations.)
Kitsap saw its first drop in legal marijuana sales in November. The state has yet to release sales figures for December.
Image via Google
Kitsap County’s first recreational marijuana store opened in August of 2014 and sales soared for the next 14 months.
That trend changed abruptly in November, when the county saw its first month-to-month decline in retail marijuana sales.
Gross sales dipped by nearly 9 percent between October to November, according to numbers posted by the state Liquor and Cannabis Board:
The decline in sales wasn’t limited to Kitsap. Washington recorded its first statewide drop in retail marijuana revenue back in July, following a restructuring of the excise tax, and sales slipped again in November:
A one-month falloff in sales is far from a trend, but the decline does come at an interesting time for the industry.
The Liquor and Cannabis Board announced plans last week to lift the cap on retail licenses, as the state prepares to roll the marginally-regulated medical marijuana system into the tightly-controlled recreational marijuana system. The number of stores allowed in Kitsap would increase from 10 to 20.
Some legal marijuana sellers believe the market is already becoming saturated in Bremerton and Port Orchard, pointing to a plateau in per-store sales this fall.
The chart below shows gross sales for each of the seven active marijuana stores in Kitsap (an eighth store, called The Reef, just opened in Bremerton, and a tribally-owned store opened in Suquamish).
You can wave your mouse over the store names to highlight their sales:
