Las Vegas marijuana stores to be able to open with one license

Marijuana stores in the city of Las Vegas no longer will need separate licenses for recreational and medical use to open.

The city of Las Vegas voted 6-0 Wednesday, with Mayor Carolyn Goodman abstaining, to approve a bill allowing a store to open if it only has a recreational license. The new Las Vegas rules say a store that is only licensed to sell recreational marijuana can open in the city limits if it:

■ Provides priority service to customers with valid medical marijuana cards.

■ Sells a variety of products with therapeutic levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, a cannabis compound said to help with anxiety, pain and other ailments.

■ Complies with patient education and support provisions of state code with all customers, not only medical patients. Those provisions include telling customers about the effectiveness of ways to use medical marijuana and the ban on smoking marijuana in public places.

City spokesman Jace Radke said the bill needs to be signed and published before it takes effect. That will likely be next week, Radke said.

Members of the local marijuana industry praised city council for including rules about medical marijuana patients. The number of medical marijuana cardholders dropped from 25,000 in January 2017 to 17,000 in October 2018 statewide, according to the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health

“It is heartening whenever local or state government actively works to protect the integrity and strength of the medical marijuana program,” she said.

Contact Wade Tyler Millward at 702-383-4602 or wmillward@reviewjournal.com. Follow @wademillward on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writer Michael Scott Davidson contributed to this report.