Henderson approves city’s first medical pot dispensary

Henderson’s first medical marijuana dispensary won unanimous approval Tuesday night from the City Council.

Great Basin Care could open this summer or slightly sooner, said co-owner Brian Greenspun, who is also the publisher of the Las Vegas Sun.

The dispensary will be at 4300 E. Sunset Road, not far from McCarran International Airport. It adds another business to the Greenspun’s Las Vegas interests. The family also developed Green Valley Ranch and owned TV stations and a cable franchise.

The council invited public comment, but no one spoke either for or against the dispensary.

Also Tuesday night, the City Council approved four marijuana grow — or “cultivation” — facilities, also after no public comment. The facilities will be in industrial areas east of U.S. Highway 95, not near homes.

Residents had signed up to oppose Jenny’s Dispensary, which had been planned for a shopping center near Sun City Anthem.

But neighborhood opposition led the owners to seek a new location. At the owners’ request, the council delayed a hearing on that dispensary until April 14.

Residents spoke against the dispensary at a public forum last week, wrote council members to oppose it and signed up to speak Tuesday night in case the application went forward.

“We heard you loud and clear,” dispensary CEO David Rosen said at Tuesday’s meeting, turning toward the audience.

Residents said they were not opposed to medical marijuana — or even to a dispensary in their neighborhood — but merely to the proposed site in a small and quiet shopping center at the southern end of Eastern Avenue.

The otherwise drama-free meeting, which lasted barely an hour, was in stark contrast to the process in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County. The county and Las Vegas decided to rank dispensary applicants before the state did. It approved some that the state did not, and the state later approved others that hadn’t won local approval.

That led to dueling lawsuits and left questions over the future of many dispensaries. Henderson prevented such disputes by waiting for the state to choose which dispensaries to approve.

At Tuesday’s meeting, City Council members asked a few questions, mainly about security and how marijuana will be packaged.

Owners of the dispensary, Great Basin Care, and the cultivation facilities said they will have surveillance cameras and key cards that give access to different areas of the buildings. One of Greenspun’s partners said the marijuana will be sold in childproof packaging in an opaque bag.

Contact Eric Hartley at ehartley@reviewjournal.com or 702-550-9229. Find him on Twitter: @ethartley.