FOREST PARK, Ohio — From the outside, it’s hard to know what you’re looking at.
Enclosed by a tall fence, a 25,000-square-foot gray building with a neon-green stripe sits off Winton Road in the back of a commercial complex.
But once you step inside, you’ll see the operation at King City Gardens is buzzing.
Across eight grow rooms, the facility is pumping out 550 pounds of cannabis flower every week.
Ohio gave the green light to dispensaries to sell recreational marijuana to adults 21 and older on August 6.
Co-founder Caveh Azadeh said many of the dispensaries his products are being delivered to are seeing about two to three times more demand compared to Ohio’s medical cannabis program.
“I almost kind of relate it to alcohol in the 1930s,” he said. “And being able to be a pioneer with how that rolled out.”
When the Forest Park facility opened 14 months ago, there were about 20 employees. Today, there are 180. With plans for an expansion and a dispensary, the number could soon look like 400 to 500, Azadeh said.
Last week, King City Gardens received its dual-use license. Previously, as a cultivator, the facility could only sell to other dispensaries. Now it has the opportunity to open three of its own dispensaries and sell direct-to-consumer.
“We have the opportunity to carry [our] own brands and also other brands within the state of Ohio,” Azadeh said noting the efficiency could result in a lower price for a consumer.
The budding challenge now is where to locate those dispensaries. There are 75 active local moratoriums enacted by Ohio jurisdictions, according to an analysis by Ohio State University’s Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. It represents just under 13% of Ohio’s population.
Just because a jurisdiction has a moratorium in place does not mean it is interested in hosting businesses.
The center reports that 36 moratoriums state they are waiting for the full state rules.
Forest Park falls under that category, city manager Donnie Jones said.
“Our city has decided to just wait and see what the final rules were,” Jones said.
He said city council is likely to discuss the way forward at its next meeting.
“We think that as an industry, it’s something that’s on the cutting edge of some of the things that are upcoming over the next 20, 30, 40 years,” Jones said. “It’s something that you know is going to happen around you anyway, and you might as well control it through zoning and through regulation.”
Azadeh said he’d like to keep his dispensary location in the Greater Cincinnati area.
“We would like to have our first dispensaries serving local residents,” Azadeh said.
There are plans to make a dispensary in Forest Park an educational resource, centered around the facility’s technology to maximize the plant’s optimal growth.
“Once Ohio understands the economic benefits and the ability to be able to have more businesses within their neighborhoods, I think people are going to embrace it, and they already have,” said Azadeh.
