Two marijuana businesses in the greater Bay Area are among the first in the state to be granted licenses to sell recreational pot.

Buddy’s Cannabis in San Jose and KindPeoples in Santa Cruz are stocking their shelves in anticipation of New Year’s Day sales of products ranging from simple $5 “pre-rolls” to elite $280-an-ounce packages of weed.

“It is a life’s dream come true,” said Matt Lucero, owner of Buddy’s, whose business received the first “microbusiness” license — numbered “0000001” — in the state.

Possession, personal cultivation and consumption of recreational marijuana by adults has been legal since passage of Proposition 64 in November 2016. But it’s been illegal to buy and sell it.

Starting Jan. 1, cannabis for recreational use will be legally sold and taxed at highly regulated retail outlets.

The two businesses are among the 20 enterprises given licenses Thursday by the state’s Bureau of Cannabis Control to retailers, distributors, microbusinesses and testing laboratories.

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Many more licenses will be issued in the coming weeks, according to the Lori Ajax, the state’s first marijuana czar.

The bureau’s online licensing system was just opened last week — and both Buddy’s and KindPeoples were among the first in line for what are expected to be an explosion of applications.

Despite the passage of the statewide ballot measure, California cities and counties still have the power to ban sales and cultivation within their borders. An estimated 72 percent of the state’s municipalities have so far refused to allow recreational marijuana businesses — many of them saying there simply hasn’t been enough time to prepare.

But San Jose and Santa Cruz have regulated medical marijuana for years. So they just tweaked their ordinances to regulate recreational marijuana. And the cities were quick to issue permits, as required by the state. As a result, their businesses were among the first in line and won speedy state approval.

Read the full story at The Cannifornian.