Barring any last-minute changes, marijuana dispensaries will be coming to Mountain Home and Mountain View after the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission awarded operating permits Wednesday afternoon in Little Rock.

The commission, in a unanimous voice vote, accepted a consulting firm’s scores of the 199 applications for the state’s first 32 dispensaries. Those dispensaries will be spread across eight geographical zones, with the four highest-scoring applications in each zone receiving a permit.

Plant Family Therapeutics, one of two would-be marijuana businesses based in Mountain Home, was listed as having the second-highest scoring application for Zone 2, which includes Baxter, Boone, Cleburne, Fulton, Izard, Marion, Newton, Searcy, Stone and Van Buren counties.

Other Zone 2 applications that were approved included Fiddler’s Green of Mountain View, Big Fish of North Central Arkansas in Heber Springs and Arkansas Natural Products in Clinton.

The commission released the names of the highest-scoring applications in late December after numerous Freedom of Information Act requests to do so from multiple newspapers and television stations.

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It remains unclear where all 32 dispensaries will be placed because several companies submitted multiple applications for dispensary permits. Those companies must pick one location to operate, freeing up a license in another regional zone. None of the businesses awarded licenses in Zone 2 had applications pending in other zones.

Dispensary permit winners have a week to pay a $15,000 licensing fee and post a $100,000 performance bond before the state officially issues a permit.

Other marijuana dispensary applications for the Twin Lakes Area included Greener Findings LLC of Mountain Home; Arkansas Green Cross Cannabis in Salem; River Valley Releaf in Flippin; 23 LLC and New Leaf Cannabis Company LLC, both in Harrison; Piney Creek Mercantile, LLC in Melbourne and Alternative Care of Arkansas in Ash Flat.

Complete breakdowns of potential marijuana businesses’ ownership structures have not yet been released by the state. Articles of incorporation for limited liability companies filed with the Secretary of State must list a business’ registered agent and one or more officers. A business’ registered agent is not necessarily a member of a business’ ownership structure.

According to incorporation documents, Plant Family Therapeutics of Mountain Home lists Clint Mickle of Benton as its registered agent and Melissa Bandy as its incorporator/organizer. There is no address listed for Bandy.

Fiddler’s Green of Mountain View lists a principal address in Batesville and Lisa Dawn Murphy of Batesville as registered agent, manager and incorporator/organizer. Gregory Kent Thomas is also listed as a manager.

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Boston-based Public Consulting Group was hired in August by the Marijuana Commission to score the state’s dispensary applications after commissioners themselves scored the applications for the state’s five large-scale cultivation facilities.

Those cultivation licenses were award in July, and four of those five businesses have started construction on their facilities. The fifth, Delta Medical Cannabis Co. of Newport, was awaiting commission approval to move a mile and a half down the street before it broke ground. The commission on Wednesday approved that request.

Some of the dispensaries have elected to grow up to 50 mature cannabis plants, but data on which dispensaries will grow the drug was not available Thursday.

Barring any legal challenges or setbacks, state regulators estimate that the first dispensaries will open in the spring.

As of Friday, the Arkansas Department of Health had approved 6,764 patients for medical marijuana ID cards, which allows them to legally purchase, possess and use the drug. To obtain a card, patients must receive certification from a doctor that they suffer from one of 18 qualifying conditions. The cards cost $50, and they must be renewed annually for the same price.

The agency announced last week that it would begin issuing the cards next month.

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