Backcountry Cannabis Company sold its Breckenridge store to Green Dragon Cannabis Company, a chain stretching from Denver to Glenwood Springs. While the store re-opened on Thursday, Dec. 31, BCC's sign will remain in place until Green Dragon receives approval for rebranding.

Elise Reuter / ereuter@summitdaily.com |

One of Breckenridge’s mainstay dispensaries, Backcountry Cannabis Company, sold its Airport Road location to Denver-based cannabis chain, Green Dragon Cannabis Company. It opened its doors at the location on Thursday, Dec. 31, and shop’s shelves are already filled with several strains of bud, edibles and tinctures.

“We’re fully open and ready to roll,” said Max Gorodesky, a manager at Green Dragon Cannabis Company, formerly Backcountry Cannabis Company. “We’re gonna have an entirely new look within the next few weeks.”

While the ownership has changed — employees say co-founders Brian Rogers and Caitlin McGuire are focusing on wholesale — the store looks very much the same. The old “Backcountry Cannabis Co.” sign still overlooks the storefront, while the Green Dragon waits for rebranding approval.

“The timing on that is a matter of paperwork,” Green Dragon marketing manager Trent Blizzard said. “We just bought the actual store.”

The official closing date of the acquision was on Dec. 29, but the purchase contract was signed back in October.

“When we heard this dispensary was for sale we were very excited about making the acquisition,” Green Dragon co-owner Ryan Milligan said. “The former owners were great to work with and were very helpful in making this an easy transition.”

The acquisition will make for the sixth shop owned by the Green Dragon Cannabis Company, with another soon to open in Aurora. While the name stems from the original Glenwood Springs dispensary, the company was purchased by a Denver-based chain, Greenwerkz, which adopted the name.

“They have a huge and very sophisticated grow operation in Denver and have a new one in Glenwood now,” Blizzard said. “It certainly blows my mind — the experience and technology they bring to growing very high-quality marijuana.”

While Rogers and McGuire will no longer be involved with the Breckenridge store, they will still maintain their grow and another dispensary in Crested Butte.

On Main Street, BCC’s Cannabis Education Center is now vacant. The upstairs of the bright yellow building once housed BCC’s flagship medical marijuana store, which opened in 2010. The dispensary was moved to Airport Road in 2014, after BCC began selling retail and the town of Breckenridge voted to move all dispensaries from Main Street.

After the move, BCC continued to lease the space and use it for cannabis education, as well as to sell memorabilia and raise awareness of the new space out of Airport Road. A dispensary was opened in Crested Butte in the summer of 2014 and is set to continue with cannabis retail.

The story came to fame after the move was detailed on CNN’s eight-part documentary series, “High Profits,” which recently came to Netflix.

While the new store has been open for less than a week, Gorodesky noted he had seen a change in product.

“Prices are going down” he said.

One strain of note is Green Dragon’s LemonG, a lemon-pine scented sativa cut that won second place at the High Times Cannabis Cup in Holland. The dispensary will not make medical sales, but will offer special pricing to medical card holders.

Neither Rogers nor McGuire were available for comment at the time of this story.