Connecticut’s last medical-only cannabis dispensary looks to move after recreational denia
January 20, 2026
Within a couple years, Connecticut may not have any dispensaries that only serve medical cannabis patients.
With its current lease expiring in the near future, the last medical-only dispensary remaining in the state, Bluepoint Wellness, has a plan to temporarily move within Westport while it prepares to open a hybrid shop elsewhere, according to application materials filed with the town’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
Bluepoint Wellness, the first and only medical cannabis dispensary in Westport, opened in late 2019. Unlike other medical dispensaries in the state, it hasn’t become a hybrid retailer that sells products to both patients and recreational consumers.
Not that Bluepoint Wellness hasn’t tried.
In 2021, after the enactment of the state law that legalized possession and use of cannabis by adults, Westport’s Planning and Zoning Commission amended the town’s zoning code to prohibit any cannabis businesses except medical dispensaries from setting up shop in town, as it was allowed to do by the law. At the time, the commission cited concerns about a recreational dispensary worsening traffic problems.
Two years later, after recreational sales began in the state, Bluepoint Wellness asked the commission to discuss the idea of letting the dispensary convert to a hybrid establishment.
“Each day, we have to turn away local residents visiting Bluepoint asking if we sell recreational products,” co-founder Nick Tamborrino said at the time.
But the commission showed no interest in updating the town’s zoning code. Meanwhile, Bluepoint Wellness opened a recreational dispensary, Venu Flower Collective, about 50 miles north in Middletown.
In 2024, Tamborrino tried again in Westport.
“Discussed. No changes since last time the Commission looked at this topic,” state the minutes from the Planning and Zoning Commission’s meeting.
Now, the dispensary has applied for a special permit so it can move from its current location at 1460 Post Road East to 345 Post Road West.
But it does not intend to stay there.
Rather, Bluepoint Wellness expects to operate at 345 Post Road West for 18 to 24 months then move to a different town where it plans to run a hybrid store, according to a statement included in the dispensary’s zoning application. Its new location outside Westport, which isn’t named in the statement, won’t be available before the lease at 1460 Post Road East expires.
The Planning and Zoning Commission is set to hold a public hearing on the application on Jan. 26.
Tamborrino could not be reached for comment. Green Thumb Industries, Bluepoint Wellness’ business partner, did not return a request for comment.
The Chicago-based Green Thumb Industries also owns cannabis cultivator Advanced Grow Labs in West Haven and two hybrid stores: Rise Dispensary Branford, formerly Bluepoint Wellness of Connecticut, and Rise Dispensary Orange, which was previously known as Southern CT Wellness & Healing when it was located in Milford.
Since early 2023, the number of registered medical cannabis patients in Connecticut has fallen from nearly 49,000 to fewer than 32,000, according to state data. Annual medical sales have dropped from $129 million in 2023 to about $73 million last year.
Fairfield County has about 7,200 registered patients and seven hybrid retailers, a few of which were formerly medical-only dispensaries.
“Some of the original medical stores in the state that have since converted are still doing decent numbers in medical sales,” said Ben Zachs, the chief operating officer of Fine Fettle, which has nine hybrid dispensaries across Connecticut, including two in Fairfield County.
But he said it’s “becoming more and more difficult for most stores to think medical only.”
State cannabis ombudsman Erin Gorman Kirk attributed the shrinking number of registered patients, in part, to people preferring to go to nearby states where prices are cheaper, there is a greater variety of products and the products, patients feel, are of better quality.
“Our patients are leaving because the quality is not here, the consistency is not here, the price is too high, and (some are) on fixed incomes and they go where they have to go,” Kirk said.
While Zachs pushed back on the criticism of the consistency and quality of products in Connecticut, he said he agrees that consumers in other states, like Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have a larger amount of options.
But those states, he said, have more cannabis cultivators, and “their rules are just significantly less strict” when it comes to potency caps, branding and flavoring.
In Connecticut, medical cannabis products can be more potent than recreational ones, but as patient numbers have dropped, manufacturers and retailers have lost incentive to make and stock those special products, industry experts say.
Includes prior reporting by Staff Writer Jordan Nathaniel Fenster.
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