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Cannabis company exec discusses plan to turn drive-thru into dispensary

| June 2, 2022
Limited liability company Ratio Cannabis has been awarded a provisional license to transform this drive-thru on West High Avenue into a medical marijuana dispensary. (WJER Radio)

GOSHEN TWP (WJER) (June 2, 2022) – The head of the limited liability company trying to open Tuscarawas County’s first medical marijuana dispensary is detailing some of the rules it must follow.

Ratio Cannabis CEO Luke Marino says the Ohio Pharmacy Board controls and carefully monitors every aspect of the state’s medicinal marijuana program including where and how products are dispensed to patients. 

“It is not a public facility. It is a private facility that only people with a physician-issued medical card can access. Even if you have the card you have to have it with you along with your state id and check in every single time that you enter the facility,” he says. “You’re not going to be able to see any of the activity from the street. By law, advertising and signage are discrete. The Ohio Administrative and Revised Codes are pretty comprehensive.”

The board has granted Ratio Cannabis a provisional license to create a dispensary complying with the program rules and regulations in a pocket of unincorporated land on West High Avenue. Marino says the sales area will be in what’s currently the West End Drive-Thru, which will undergo extensive renovations in the coming months.

“There will be no drive-thru, and what are now the drive-thru bays will become fixed, secure walls. The building will have a new facade that’s more in line with its new use as opposed to a drive-thru.” 

The company will be leasing that space and a separate part of the building that Marino says will be converted into a secure product receiving area beginning July 1st. The facility will have to pass a final inspection once the transformation is complete to obtain the permit required to begin operating.

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