Advertisement Boston's 1st recreational marijuana shop approved to open Monday Pure Oasis will open on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester

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Boston’s first retail pot shop and Massachusetts’ first minority-owned marijuana business is set to open for business Monday, more than a year after the first shops opened elsewhere in the state.The state’s Cannabis Control Commission on Thursday issued a notice authorizing Pure Oasis to commence sales Monday.The shop, located at 430 Blue Hill Ave., was proposed by two local black entrepreneurs. It will be the first to open under the CCC's Economic Empowerment Program. “On behalf of the entire team at Pure Oasis, we are excited to reach this important moment where we will open our doors as the first retail cannabis business in Boston and as the first economic empowerment candidate in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," co-owners Kobie Evans and Kevin Hart wrote in a statement. "We want to thank the Cannabis Control Commission for their ongoing support every step of the way, Mayor Walsh and the City of Boston for their willingness to assist us through this process since day one, the City Council and the community who has embraced us. We look forward to providing legal marijuana to adults 21-years and older and we will welcome our first customers on Monday, March 9th at 11 a.m.”The approval comes more than three years after voters approved the nation’s first marijuana law aimed at encouraging African Americans, Latinos and other people harmed by the war on drugs to participate in the new industry. Black and Latino groups have voiced their frustration for months at the slow pace of approvals for minority-owned businesses, both in Massachusetts and nationwide.Massachusetts currently has more than 30 retail marijuana locations, but only one is in Greater Boston: New England Treatment Access, in the affluent suburb of Brookline.Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who has faced criticism for his city’s slow rollout of pot shops, also signed into law last year an ordinance overhauling the local process for vetting marijuana businesses. Among other things, the new law creates the state’s first equity fund aimed at providing technical assistance and other services to minority entrepreneurs seeking to enter the industry.Pure Oasis, which is also proposing two other shops in the Boston area, also hopes to do its part to recruit minority workers. It has been holding job fairs in and around Dorchester, a neighborhood where more than 40% of residents are black, he said. The company said it hoped to employ about 30 workers. The Associated Press contributed to this report.