A ton of work went into finding a home for RX Med in Prescott Arkansas, but in the end, the deal just couldn’t be done. Even with letters objecting to the move from a Senator, and a State Representative. The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission voted unanimously to let the company relocate the license to the old Electric Cowboy building in Texarkana, Arkansas.
This all started back on March 5th, the move was brought before the commission by attorney Chris Travis, representing the RX Med Group. He spoke about not being able to use the original property that the company had intended to purchase. As negotiations on the property went beyond the agreement period, in the March 5th meeting, Travis said that during the negotiations, “Lo and behold, the property became more valuable” which priced them out of that property. Travis also spoke of a surprise discovery of a Gas Easement that ran thru the property. Prescott and Nevada County Economic Director Mary Godwin went to great lengths to help find other properties and locations for RX Med, but to no avail. As the liability of meeting all of the stringent rules and regulations set forth by the state fall on the applicants, those same rules prevented the use of many properties based on location to churches or schools, in one case property owned by a church much further away than the actual church building. The group also had a few instances of people not wanting to sell any property to them because the sellers were against the idea of Medical Marijuana, which is their right. At that same meeting, Prescott Mayor Terry Oliver was in attendance and the representatives for Prescott spoke about the economic impact losing the dispensary would be to Prescott, and Nevada County. Ms. Godwin also disagreed in the notion that the Gas line was a surprise and that RX Med knew of it from the beginning of negotiations. At the March 5 meeting, the commission voted to table the request.
The Arkansas MMC met again to address this move on Wednesday, April 3. The RX Med Group was in attendance, but no representatives from Prescott were present. They did have letters from the Mayor and Ms. Godwin objecting to the move, along with letters from Senator Bruce Maloch, and State Representative Danny Watson that also objected to the move.
RX Med Consultant Ross Mash spoke to the commission about the lengths that the group had gone to trying to remain in Prescott. One of the Owners, Carole Moore mentioned how her mother’s family is from the Delight and Prescott area and it had special meaning to be in that area, but that at a certain point, business has to move on. Even acknowledging that in the Commissions scoring matrix, RX Med would lose some points, but not change their position in the queue for licensing.
The Electric Cowboy Building, or if you are old enough, “The Pines” building had already been approved to be a dispensary for another company that failed to win a license. So, it only made sense to look at that location. With the move keeping the dispensary license in Zone 8, but just a different county.
Surely the investigative reporters or weed editors will get some more details on the dispensary plans for you, but here is how the latest meeting went down.
The commission ended up voting unanimously in favor of the move. Check out the video of the meeting, but do yourself a favor and jump ahead to the 41-minute mark…
https://www.facebook.com/1028793943967446/videos/1363759983764798/