KITTERY, Maine — As a student attendingcollege in Maine, Nick Friedman would drive alongRoute 1 en routeto school, stoppingsometimes at the Kittery Outlets.
Friedman would later go on to co-found Theory Wellness, a medical and recreational cannabis company with locations in Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont, with his college roommate, Brandon Pollock. Seven years after Theory Wellness was created, Friedman is now bringing the first recreational marijuana store in Kittery to the outlet shops.
Long-awaited adult-use marijuana sales in town are slated to begin Friday as Theory Wellnesswill open at 8 Dexter Lane in the Outlet Mall.
“It’s an incredible place in Maine. It’s kind of an entrance point as people are coming up into Maine,” Friedmansaid of the outlets. “It’s a major shopping district and it’s a great community. It definitely had been on the radar as a place that would really be a great home for a cannabis dispensary.”
The opening will comenearly one year after an entry purchased byFriedman,thechief strategy officerof Theory Wellness, was drawn at random in a marijuana retail business license application lottery held by the town.
Friedman is the principal behind Tree Tips 3 LLC, which received land-use approval from the Kittery Planning Board in the spring, followed by operatinglicense approval from the Town Council in August.
What to expect at Kittery outlets pot shop
The 2,472-square-foot store at the outlets will be open seven days a week from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., according to Thomas Winstanley, Theory Wellness’ chief marketing officer. Winstanley said the Kittery shop will offer marijuana products, edibles, beverages, and companyapparel andmerchandise.
“We're going to have a variety of high-quality, local Maine vendors,” Winstanley said. “We know that Maine has some of the best premium craft growers, and we love using our retail as a place to showcase some of their products.”
Theory Wellness’ location in Maine’s southernmost town will be its fourth adult-use pot shop in the state. The three other shops the company has in Maine are in Bangor, South Portland and Waterville. In Massachusetts, Theory Wellness has two recreational stores in Chicopee and Great Barrington that double as medical-use locations and a separate medical-use store in Bridgewater.
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The company is also in the process of opening its first Vermont shop, an adult-use location in Brattleboro, though an opening date hasn’t been announced.
Winstanley said Theory Wellness willdonate 10% of its net profits at the Kittery location in its first week to Footprints Food Pantry.
Upon opening a store in a new municipality, Winstanley said, Theory Wellness partners with area nonprofits. “When we move into these communities, we inherit the same problems that they’ve been working to fight,” he said.
Theory Wellness' co-founder also drawn first in town pot license application lottery
Friedman’s application was for the sole marijuana business license being distributed for the town’s Commercial 1 (C-1) zone, while two other licenses will be issued for Kittery’s Commercial 2 (C-2) and Commercial 3 (C-3) zones.
In August 2021, the Town Council adopted an ordinance allowing three adult-use or medical retail marijuana businesses in Kittery, which would sell to people age 21 and older. Three town zones, the C-1, C-2 and C-3 zones, were approved for retail marijuana sales, with one license being awarded for each zone in separate lottery drawings.
Mitchell Delaney, owner of the existing Kittery medical marijuana business Indico on State Road, was drawn first from the C-3 zone during last fall’s lottery.
Pollock, the chief executive officer of Theory Wellness, was the first random selection in the C-2 zonelicense lottery. Pollock’s application has not advanced past the Planning Board stage yet and will continue before the board next month.
The Theory Wellness co-founders submitted at least 353 applications to the lottery, requiring them to pay a minimum of $250,000 to the town in fees.
“When they came out with the ordinance, it was very competitive in terms of the process that they outlined. We studied it and I was looking at this ordinance trying to interpret how people would approach it. It seemed pretty clear that those interested in applying would probably be submitting multiple applications, which was in accordance with the way that the ordinance was written,” Friedman said.
Upon venturing into the medical market upon its founding, Theory Wellness’first patient was Friedman’s father, who was using cannabis to treat nerve pain after he was in a ski accident that temporarily paralyzed him.
Theory Wellness eventually expanded and dove into the adult-use market, becoming one of the first businesses to open a recreational store in Massachusetts.
“While certainly we have reached a certain scale that not every company has, we try to maintain the ability to stay nimble and stay small and be thoughtful in how we operate, and try to really provide the best quality service to everyone,” Friedman said.
Adult-use pot sales in Maine over $114M so far in 2022
The growing company’s expansion into Kittery comes as Maine’s recreational market has blossomed since sales began in October 2020.
This year alone, adult-use sales in Maine have topped $114 million to date, according to the state’s Office of Cannabis Policy. In September, there were 256,303 recreational marijuana transactions statewide and over $16 million conducted in sales.
The Office of Cannabis Policy reports that through the first nine months of the year, the average price per gram of cannabis is $9.59.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Kittery Outlet Mall cannabis shop Theory Wellness opening
