Feeling dankrupt in Colorado, but don’t want to get out of your car to go into a dispensary? There’s a business model for that. Can you say marijuana drive-thru?
Tumbleweed, owned by Green Cross Colorado LLC, is set to become the state’s first-ever drive through marijuana sales establishment. It’s located in a former car wash, in a plot twist that would make Walter White proud.
The building also makes it easier for owners to comply with some of the rules around dispensaries that normal fast-food drive throughs would struggle to meet: No displaying the product outside of the store, or letting it be visible from the outside.
Legal weed saved the town from near-certain economic destruction, as Parachute Mayor Roy McClung noted during a Chamber of Commerce luncheon this month. Nearly 30 percent of Parachute’s sales tax receipts in 2016 were from marijuana sales, at $310,000 out of $1.05 million total, according to the Post Independent. Legalizing weed sales in 2015 has been a boon to the small town:
He pointed to the fact that cars coming off the highway to purchase marijuana in Parachute are now more likely to stop at other restaurants and shops, which has proven to be an economic driver for the town, which was hit hard by the latest natural gas downturn.
“In December 2016, $25,016 of the town’s $93,320 tax receipt figure, or 26.8 percent of the town’s sale tax for the month, was from the sale of recreational marijuana,” McArthur wrote in a memo to the town’s Board of Trustees. “The percentage is down from previous months, indicating that other sales tax is increasing as a percentage of the total.”
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Other regulations around this innovative idea include no one under 21 years of age (even if they’re in the backseat) and surveillance must be places at the point of sale. Tumbleweed’s drive-through is expected to open next month.
