With several Juneau marijuana businesses at various stages of the permitting process, the local marijuana retail industry could get underway fairly soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at a point where we\u2019re getting very, very close to seeing marijuana on retail shelves in the capital city,\u201d Juneau Assemblyman Jesse Kiehl said during Thursday\u2019s Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon.<\/p>\n
Kiehl, who chairs the city\u2019s marijuana committee, spoke to a crowd of about 25 people on what it takes to open a marijuana business in Juneau.<\/p>\n
In order to start a marijuana cultivation, product manufacturing, testing or a retail outfit, you need a City and Borough of Juneau conditional use permit, a state license from the state marijuana control board, a CBJ license, and state- and city-required signage.<\/p>\n
[Historic moment: State awards first commercial marijuana licenses<\/a>]<\/p>\n Getting a CBJ conditional user permit for a marijuana business requires a site plan, security plan, waste disposal plan, screening plan, ventilation and air filtration, growing and processing methods, materials and mold control. Most of these things are required for a state license as well. These conditional user permits will be reviewed every five years.<\/p>\n Kiehl said the process of getting a conditional use permit and a state license should be able to run in parallel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ideal is that a business can go to the state with their license application, come to CBJ with their conditional use permit application and, to the maximum extent possible, those things are going to look alike and those processes are going to run at the same time so that you can shorten up and streamline the permitting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Once you have both those things, you need a city license, which Kiehl said is meant to serve as an effective enforcement tool not in place for other local businesses, like the alcohol industry.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to the nascent retail marijuana industry, the majority view was that we didn\u2019t want to go to the state and say, \u2018Mother may I? Would you please?\u2019 but that we needed a card that the city could pull,\u201d Kiehl said. \u201cThere are obviously steps before just revoking it. There\u2019s something between, \u2018Do what you will,\u2019 and the death penalty for your business, but that\u2019s the tool we have on the local level to do that kind of enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n The Juneau business furthest along in the licensing process is Rainforest Farms run by brothers James and Giono Barrett. Rainforest Farms already has CBJ conditional use permits for cultivation and retail, and a state license for cultivation.<\/p>\n