HARTFORD — The state awarded licenses Thursday for six medical marijuana retail outlets in Branford, Bridgeport, Bristol, Hartford, Montville and South Windsor.

State officials announced the six licenses, chosen from 27 applications, and said that the dispensaries will be up and running by summer. Two of the dispensary owners said Thursday that the start of their businesses will mainly depend on when the state's four licensed medical marijuana growers will have their products ready for sale.

The six businesses are:

Arrow Alternative Care Inc., 92 Weston St., Hartford

Bluepoint Apothecary LLC, 469 E. Main St., Branford

D&B; Wellness LLC, 2181 Main St., Bridgeport

Prime Wellness of Connecticut LLC, 75 John Fitch Boulevard, South Windsor

Thames Valley Apothecary LLC, 1100 Norwich-New London Turnpike (Route 32), in the Uncasville section of Montville

The Healing Corner Inc., 159 E. Main St., Bristol

Thomas Nicholas, CEO of Prime Wellness in South Windsor, said he expects that the store will have products ready to sell by "late summer."

A former registered nurse who worked in Hartford Hospital operating rooms, Nicholas became a medical supplies salesman in 1980s and went on to operate five dialysis centers in Connecticut.

"One of our consultants is a company that operates a medical marijuana facility in Maine, so they've got the intellectual property," Nicholas said. "They've been doing it successfully for the past three years. I think it'll be unique in that we've got a real solid health care background with folks who actually operate in the business."

As for products it will sell, he said the dispensary will be stocked with a wide range: "Smokables, edibles, vaporizers, whatever the state allows, so that patients can get the medicine that fits their needs."

The dispensary will be in a commercial strip that includes a Chinese restaurant and other businesses, Nicholas said.

The Thames Valley Apothecary in Montville will be run by Laurie Zrenda, a pharmacist for 27 years now working at a Rite-Aid store. Zrenda said that she had long wanted to own her own drug store, but that it is more difficult than ever for an independent drug store to remain viable. She said she saw the state's medical marijuana program as a good chance to run her own business, which will operate out of a 12,000-square-foot space.

Partnering with Zrenda will be her niece, Meredith Elmer, a pharmacist at a Stop & Shop. Zrenda said she thinks their backgrounds gave them the edge over other applicants.

"The fact that my niece and I are both pharmacists, I think that had something to do with it," she said, "that we're both keeping it professional and medical."

Zrenda said that her company will participate in a program, offered by the Connecticut Pharmacists Association, that will collect customer feedback about what strains of marijuana work best for certain conditions, and make those comments available to researchers.

In January, the state awarded licenses to four businesses to grow medical marijuana and produce related products. The announcement was made at a press conference with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy at the site of one of the licensed manufacturers, Advanced Grow Labs in West Haven. One of the principals of that company, John J. Czarkowski, has since resigned after it was reported that he had lost his marijuana production license in Colorado.

Thursday's announcement was made by press release sent out via email to the media.

"With the selection of dispensary facilities, all necessary pieces of the medical marijuana program are in place and we are poised to provide patients with a safe and secure source of needed medicine," Consumer Protection Commissioner William M. Rubenstein said.

The state Department of Consumer Protection, which oversees the medical marijuana program, had originally planned to award no more than five licenses for dispensaries. Rubenstein said that number was set when there were only 900 patients certified by their physicians to use marijuana.

But there are now 1,990 certified patients, he said, "so we try to get as much geographic dispersion as possible to serve as many patients conveniently."

All the companies have the needed local approvals except for D&B; Wellness in Bridgeport, Rubenstein said. A zoning hearing is pending for the company's application later this month. If approval is denied, he said, the state will then decide what to do next.

Scoring of the applications was based on five main criteria: business information, location and site plan, business plan, marketing plan, and financial and organizational information. Healing Corner in Bristol scored the highest, followed by Arrow in Hartford. Prime Wellness in South Windsor was third, Thames Valley Apothecary in Montville was fourth, D&B; in Bridgeport was fifth and Bluepoint Apothecary & Wellness in Branford was sixth.