ROCHESTER — In the first 24 hours of selling recreational, “adult use” cannabis in addition to its medical-prescribed products,
Minnesota-based Green Goods
saw a steady increase in customers at all eight state dispensaries, including
the one in Rochester.

“Everything has been going pretty smooth. (Tuesday), we served hundreds of adult use customers across the state and we’re already trending to exceed that today,” said Vireo Growth President Amber Shimpa early Wednesday afternoon. She said she expected foot traffic would ramp up as news gets out they are serving adult use customers. “We did so much planning leading up to this with the team running through different scenarios and testing our systems that support the business in the back of house, so the team is handling it well.”

Vireo, which owns and operates the Green Goods dispensaries, was issued a medical cannabis combination business license by the state on Tuesday. That made its dispensaries among the first Minnesota locations, not owned by a tribe, to legally sell recreational use cannabis products.

This state license is not included in the 14 licensed retail cannabis operations under Olmsted County. However, Olmsted County Public Health does have compliance oversight for the location. Under this license, Green Goods locations can operate one retail location per congressional district. However, they must continue to offer medical cannabis at each location.

Green Goods, founded by Harmony, Minnesota, native Dr. Kyle Kingsley,
opened its Rochester dispensary at 3456 East Circle Drive in 2015.
That is the commercial center anchored by BB’s Pizzeria. Up until this week, it sold only medically-prescribed cannabis.

Under the new license, the Rochester dispensary now can sell its wide array of flower, edible, vape, drinks, balms, oral tinctures and pre-rolled cannabis products to retail customers who do not have a prescription.

However, the process is a little more involved than walking into a shop and buying something off the shelf.

Customers enter the secure entrance, show their IDs to the attendant and then are buzzed into the main dispensary. Using electronic tablets, customers then choose their items. Once the order is ready, the customer is called up to one four retail windows, two for recreational use buyers and two for medical use clients.

The Green Goods budtender then fills the order and advises the customer on the use and effects of the products.

While the new license has opened a whole new clientele for Green Goods, Shimpa anticipates that the clients with medical prescriptions will continue to buy their regular orders as before instead switching to over-the-counter cannabis products.

“Our medical patients have access to an expanded product selection, some with higher potency, medical-only products,” said Shimpa. “A couple of other benefits for those medical patients is that there’s no tax on the cannabis products that they buy and there are also no purchase limits.”

As far as cost for products, Green Goods offers a large selection of products under their own brands. Some are considered premium and have a higher price, while other brands are more affordable.

“We do want to make sure that we provide accessible products to all,” she said.