Osceola County will open its first adult-use marijuana provisioning center in Evart on Friday.
State officials say the location will be the farthest north of nine active recreational marijuana facilities in the state.
Otherwise in Michigan, there are five locations in Ann Arbor and one each in White Cloud, Morenci, and Burton.
Doug Hellyar is the president and COO of Lume Cannabis Company, which owns the Evart location.
“We’re expecting a large number of customers. Based on what we’ve seen at other locations that opened up on December 1st there is a high level of demand,” he said. “As long as you’re 21 or over we look forward to hosting you.”
Hellyar said the company also operates a medical facility in Kalamazoo and plans to open nine new stores - both medical and recreational - by the end of 2020.
“Initially some of these locations will be strictly dedicated to serving the medical patients in anticipation that many of those communities will eventually opt in so we can obtain licenses to sell to the recreational consumer,” he said.
Hellyar said facilities are planned in Iron Mountain, Mackinaw City, and Petoskey, among others.