Holy shit, guys. What a whirlwind of a life right now.
Where do I even begin? Last time I blogged, we had just become qualified applicants which just means the state had approved our application. It was a huge first step because it gave us legal standing to move forward as well as peace of mind that this was going to become a reality. It also allowed us to raise some more funds to finish updating our space for compliance and to prepare our space for its new life as a dispensary and growery. Anybody who's been in lately has noticed a random door or some new cameras or electrical. It's been fun tinkering again.
What's best and most important in our quest towards licensure is the response we've received from our local municipality. I have to hand it to the City of Prior Lake: we were prepared for them and we had done our homework and they met our preparation with their own. They had developed great new procedures and we received support from the building department, fire department, and police department. They've provided tons of guidance on multiple issues like how to layout our space for fire code, how to handle process water questions, and ideas for how to handle future plans like expansion. They've been quick to respond and forthright with information in a way that I couldn't have imagined. I am so grateful to have been able to work with the city as teammates - it's ultimately for the good of the future customer.
So, the city inspected our space and gave us guidance for code compliance, mostly fire and ADA. We've updated to meet the requirements of the guidance, continued to work with the city, and submitted our site plan to the state. Our new security system and access control installation is completed. We added new doors for what will be the new layout of the retail store and updated some electrical. We're basically done with updates aside from tidying up details, perhaps some beautification, and we're ready for the state to inspect us when they are ready. We've been working hard on getting standard operating procedures buttoned up and we're about to start implementing our new inventory and POS system. We won't be able to process credit payments anymore but we will still take debit cards and cash.
So when will we have flower? We get asked this question 50+ times per day. I have to assume we'll have plants in the building very soon - maybe in late September, at worst some time in October. We're trying to find any registered, tested product that will be available on the wholesale market when we are licensed but are not currently having much luck. Supply will probably be bad for the first few months until we have our own first harvest. Even that harvest will be pretty small and likely sell out very quickly. So expect some frustration at least until this Winter, maybe into early 2026. But. BUT. We'll have a license very soon.
It's very close to celebration time!