A Missouri company this week won permission to open a marijuana shop on East Hartford’s Main Street barely 300 yards from the border with Glastonbury, a town that banned cannabis retailers less than a year ago.
The new store will be branded as Shangri-La, a chain that is also starting operations in Norwalk, Plainville and Waterbury this year, according to plans by the developer.
In East Hartford, the plan is to demolish a small building at 32 Main St. and construct a two-floor, 4,000-square-foot store and office, according to Shangri-La CT, a subsidiary of the Missouri-based Shangri-La Dispensaries.
The retail sales floor will be about 1,200 square feet, with the rest of the space used for a secure storage vault, administrative offices and an area for customers to wait while staff processes their IDs, the company said.
“The retail area will feature point of sale systems where customers may make purchases. The applicants will also offer online ordering with in-store pickup, which will decrease the average time that customers spend in the store. The applicants anticipate that customers will spend approximately 10 minutes in the store,” according to a memo from Shangri-La Dispensaries to the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
The company also plans a drive-through service for customers, but it will require a lot more preparation than buying a couple of burgers at a fast food drive-through.
The process starts with a customer walking into the store, presenting identification, signing up for drive-through and then making an in-person purchase, according to the company. At that point, Shangri-La staff will clear the customer for drive-through purchases in the future.
After that, the approved customer can order online, listing “drive-through pickup as their pickup option. Upon reaching the drive-through window, the customer provides identification and the order number and then makes payment. A staffer will retrieve the cannabis from a secure area and bring it to the customer, who then drives off.
Shangri-La plans to have its East Hartford store open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. There will be six to nine staffers working at any time, the company said.
“All cannabis products will be stored in a secure vault that is only accessible to authorized employees and not visible to customers. All packaging displayed in the retail area of the facility are for-display-only, empty ‘dummy packaging’ and do not contain any product,” Shangri-La told the town.
“When a customer makes a purchase, an authorized staff member will retrieve the product from the secure vault and bring it to the customer at the point of sale,” Shangri-La said. “No packaging or processing of loose cannabis will take place onsite. All cannabis products available for retail will be delivered pre-packaged and ready for sale. At the close of business, all cannabis products will be secured in the vault.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission approved its site plan Wednesday.
Shangri-La already has municipal approvals from Norwalk to open a store on Main Street and a drive-through operation on Connecticut Avenue. Its website also promises locations in Plainville and Waterbury are “coming soon.” It also operates locations in Ohio and Missouri, and says it will be operating another in Illinois.
The East Hartford store will be the geographically closest marijuana retailer to Glastonbury. Last spring, Glastonbury’s council banned marijuana-related businesses from town. But its town government has no jurisdiction over East Hartford property.
H/T: https://www.msn.com/
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