On Tuesday the Anchorage Assembly unanimously approved a license for the city’s first legal cannabis retail outlet. Given that licenses for cannabis cultivation were approved a few months ago and the cannabis is ready to be sold, this means that Alaska’s largest city will have an operating cannabis retail outlet within a matter of weeks.
The Assembly gave approval to Artic Herby, which will be located in Midtown. Members of the Assembly gave approval to the outlet without discussion; no one showed up to testify for or against (an indication of how legalization has simply become the norm).
“I’m shocked. That was easy,” Artic Herbery owner Bryant Thorp, told Alaska Dispatch News after the vote.
Artic Herbery will open near West 71st Avenue on Arctic Boulevard. As a condition for the license, the store must close by midnight, and open no earlier than 8am; it must also be well-ventilated so that the smell of cannabis doesn’t permeate passed the property lines.
Thorp says that his shop will open “around the first of November-ish.”
In Alaska, thanks to an initiative passed by voters in 2014, the possession and licensed distribution of up to an ounce of cannabis is legal for those 21 and older, who are also allowed to cultivate up to six plants at a private residence.
Anchorage has a population of roughly 300,000, which is 40% of the entire state of Alaska.