SANTA ANA – The bakery door remained closed, its windows covered with brown paper, but the aroma of bread floated in the air Tuesday afternoon.

Cholula’s Bakery was expected to open Wednesday, after enduring a debacle over holiday sweet bread laced with a synthetic drug that sickened more than 40 people and that shut its doors for nearly two weeks.

While investigators are still trying to figure out how the drug got into the bread, the store’s owners and customers are looking forward to business, and baking, getting back to normal.

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Orange County health officials cleared the bakery to open Tuesday after it passed a health inspection, but owner David Valseca said it would take another day to get ready for customers.

“We’ve been cooperative and have given everything they ask for,” Valseca said, peering through the front door.

Wearing a stained red apron, Valseca spoke sourly of the news coverage of the tainted bread but said he was trying to move past it.

“We are getting things ready,” he said.

The store, at 1002 E. 17th St., made the rosca de reyes bread for the Three Kings Day celebration on Jan. 6 and distributed it to nine stores in Orange County and one in Long Beach.

People who ate the bread became ill with symptoms that included heart palpitations, dizziness, numbness and hallucinations.

The Register obtained a sample of the bread and hired a lab licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to test it. The lab found that it was contaminated with “a substantial” amount of a synthetic cannabinoid – an artificial THC with intensified effects. THC is the main chemical ingredient in marijuana.

The sheriff’s crime lab later confirmed these findings, and Santa Ana police launched a criminal investigation.

People walking in the shopping center near the bakery asked Valseca when the store would reopen.

“We’ve felt lots of support from our customers,” Valseca said.

Norma Palma, 58, walked into the neighboring store, but first stopped to greet the baker and talk about what had happened.

“I think maybe it was something in the flour we brought in,” Valseca said.

Palma has lived near the bakery almost five years.

“All of my neighbors and I talk about how we miss the bread and food from here,” Palma said.

“People have been saying bad things about the bakery, but the owners are good people,” she said. “This is where they make a living. They wouldn’t do this bad thing on purpose.”

The neighboring proprietors are eager for the bakery to reopen, too.

Cesar, who gave only his first name, works next door and said he used to buy lunch daily from Cholula’s.

The bakery’s windows, usually painted with pictures of food and bread, are blank. Cesar said Tuesday that it’s been hard watching the negative attention.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll be the first one in line early in the morning.”

Staff Writer Jenna Chandler contributed to this report.