WEST WENDOVER, Nevada — A highly-anticipated marijuana dispensary on the Nevada-Utah border has yet to open, pending a final state license.
Since it was announced it was opening soon, Deep Roots Harvest has been quizzed on social media by potential customers about when its West Wendover facility plans to finally open. All it can respond with is “hopefully soon.”
The marijuana company has cleared a series of licenses and inspections from West Wendover and the state of Nevada. But before they can officially open, stock and sell, they have to receive one more license from Nevada’s Department of Taxation.
That final bureaucratic hurdle could happen any day now.
“We are still waiting on the approval process,” Brenda Snell, Deep Roots Harvest’s Chief Administrative Officer, told FOX 13 on Friday. “We’re asking people to be patient. We want to get open as quickly as possible.”
The dispensary, which sells both recreational and medical cannabis products, will be the only one in northeastern Nevada — just a 90 minute drive from Salt Lake City. Nevada voters approved recreational marijuana sales in 2016 (Utah voters approved medical marijuana in 2018). Marijuana sales have made the state of Nevada almost $100 million in taxes alone in the past year.
West Wendover’s City Council voted in 2018 to allow a dispensary, after some back and forth. The border town’s population goes from about 5,000 on weekdays to 20,000 on weekends, mostly Utahns who visit its casinos, concert hall and discount liquor stores.
Like a lot of things that are legal in Nevada, recreational marijuana is illegal in Utah. Signs outside Deep Roots Harvest warn about the crime of taking it across state lines. Still, the Utah Highway Patrol has told FOX 13 it has no plans to conduct any special enforcement along I-80 as a result of the dispensary opening but will monitor roads for impairment.
