Aurora Wood, left, and Kinsey LaPointe plan to open their cannabis dispensary, The Highest Peak, at 25 Market St. in Potsdam by July. Photo submitted.
BY ADAM ATKINSON
North Country This Week
POTSDAM — Two local women are moving closer towards opening their cannabis store on Market Street in the former Northern Music and Video.
Kinsey LaPointe and Aurora Wood, both state-approved CAURD license holders [which grants them the ability to sell cannabis products under state law], told North Country This Week that they are hoping for a July opening for their store, The Highest Peak.
The village planning board signed off on LaPointe’s and Wood’s site plan for a cannabis distribution business at the site last week. And, before that the county planning board granted approval. Now it is in the hands of the village board to approve the location and the hours based on the planning board’s recommendation.
While the state is working to set up a cannabis store for one of its state approved license holders at the Tractor Supply plaza on Route 11, LaPointe and Wood have opted to go it alone and handle all of the site location, approvals and contracting work on their own. The state-managed process of setting up a shop site through the state Dormitory Authority [DASNY] and then choosing a licensee comes with a certain amount of red tape and bureaucracy to wade through. Read more about that at https://bit.ly/3IF9fm3
“As a business owner, the fine print that went along with that wasn’t right for us,” Wood said.
“We could find a location on our own and present it to DASNY or lease it on our own,” LaPointe said.
“We’re all North Country born and raised. We want to do the things we can do on our own. We’re all extremely hard workers,” Wood said.
“The lease alone was 100 pages long,” LaPointe said.
So the pair opted to find their location, work with local government and the community and hired their husbands to handle any of the expected contracting work…
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