The Washington State Liqueur Control Board announced that it expects the first retail marijuana facilities to start opening this July.
After the first round of application inspections and follow-ups, about 50 percent of applicants have been immediately pulled form the lottery. An in house inspection is next for those who passed, which will further limit the number of applicants in the pool.
“… roughly 25 percent did not return the required documents at all. Of the returned packets, anywhere between 20-50 percent are incomplete, thus disqualifying them from the retail lottery,” the board said in its release.
So, figure somewhere in the neighborhood of half of the 2,181 applicants are gone from the competition to open one of 334 stores the board will license. Site acquisition has been one of the bigger challenges, due to the number of restriction put forth on where a business can be located and the limited possible sites, especially in the Puget Sound Metro area.
There is also a number of qualified sites that have multiple applicants, which will limit applicants even further. Expect the Marijuana Applicants List to get shorter on a weekly basis.