The state of medical cannabis businesses in NKY: What’s the holdup?

Bluegrass Cannacare Operations Manager Chad Johns hopes to open what will be Boone County’s first medical cannabis dispensary in the coming weeks, but as it currently stands, the store is trying to secure enough supply to stock its shelves.

Located at 6809 Burlington Pike in Florence, Bluegrass Cannacare and its operators, Dripwell Vapors in Fort Wright, were awarded a “golden ticket,” Johns said. Their application was among the four Northern Kentucky-area applicants to receive a medical cannabis license through the state’s competitive lottery selection system.

Despite this, Bluegrass Cannacare has not yet opened, as Johns acknowledged that prospective dispensaries are facing supply issues that have delayed many of their opening plans. More broadly, Northern Kentuckians are awaiting the opening of the region’s first dispensary more than a year after the plant was legalized for growth and sale last January.

The Leadup

In March 2023, Gov. Andy Beshear signed Senate Bill 47 into law, authorizing the creation of a regulated medical cannabis industry in Kentucky. Set to take effect Jan. 1, 2025, the law established a framework for the sale, cultivation and processing of cannabis in the Bluegrass State.

Under the law, only patients with qualifying debilitating conditions may purchase medical cannabis. These include cancer, chronic severe pain, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, chronic nausea, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Moreover, the patient must have written permission from a medical doctor or an advanced nurse practitioner, in addition to a state identification card.

Only four types of licensed cannabis businesses are allowed under state law: dispensaries, cultivators, safety compliance facilities and producers holding both a cultivator and a processor license. Licenses were distributed through a state-run lottery system in late 2024.

In total, three applicants were awarded licenses to open dispensaries in Northern Kentucky, with one in each county. A fourth applicant was selected in Carroll County, approximately a 50-minute drive southwest down Interstate-71 from Boone County.

The Dispensaries

Bluegrass Cannacare: Florence

Bluegrass Cannacare is set to open in the vacant Cricket Wireless store at 6809 Burlington Pike. The dispensary’s owners, Dripwell Vapors, operate a vapor supply and e-cigarette retail business at 3487 Valley Plaza Parkway in Fort Wright.

Johns informed LINK nky that Bluegrass Cannacare is the sole dispensary applicant actually located in Northern Kentucky to secure an operating license through the lottery.

“Someone like myself who’s never been in the cannabis industry before, unlike some of these other guys that are MSOs – multi-state operations – they knew what they were getting into,” he said. “We’re starting from scratch.”

One reason for this could be the high cost of entering the licensing lottery, which, according to the Kentucky Office for Medical Cannabis, costs $5,000 for dispensaries. The one-time fee was nonrefundable. In addition, dispensary applicants were required to demonstrate they had access to $150,000, either deposited or available through a credit line from one or more financial institutions.

If an applicant was selected in the lottery, they were then required to pay a $30,000 licensing fee.

Fees varied depending on the type of cannabis business. For instance, Tier IV cultivators – which are industrial-scale operations permitted to grow up to 50,000 square feet of canopy – were required to pay a $30,000 application fee, demonstrate access to $1 million in capital, and pay a $100,000 licensing fee.

Due to the capital requirements for the licensing lottery, as well as the cash needed for the licensing fee upon winning, wealthier, established operations from states with more mature cannabis regulatory frameworks could increase their chances of being selected in the lottery by applying multiple times, as they could better afford the costs, unlike a small-time or first-time operator.

Johns said that this situation wasn’t necessarily caused by a lack of infrastructure, but rather by a lack of understanding.

“It’s just a lot of us didn’t know how the system works,” he said. “We didn’t know how to — I hate to use the cheesy term — “play the game.” That’s why I said we totally lucked out and hit the golden ticket.”

NatureMed: Erlanger

NatureMed, a multi-state cannabis operator, is set to open four dispensaries in Kentucky, with two in the Northern Kentucky area. NatureMed applied for multiple operating licenses. In Northern Kentucky specifically, NatureMed was awarded the licenses under the company names Yellow Flowers LLC and Green Grass Cannabis LLC.

NatureMed opened its first dispensary in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011. Since then, it has expanded into Missouri, now running three dispensaries in the state – two in the St. Louis region and one in Kansas City.

NatureMed’s website indicates that the company intends to open a dispensary at 225 Inn Road in Carrollton, right off Interstate-71. The Carrollton application was submitted under the name Green Grass Cannabis LLC.

Furthermore, the company is slated to open Kenton County’s first medical cannabis dispensary in Erlanger at 635 Donaldson Hwy. The application was submitted under the name Yellow Flowers LLC. As of now, neither store is open. Neither store’s prospective operating hours are posted on its website.

C3 Industries: Wilder

C3 Industries, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is the largest operator with a dispensary license for Northern Kentucky. The license is held under the name C3 Kentucky LLC.

The company has retail, cultivation, and manufacturing divisions. On the retail side, C3 runs 31 dispensaries across Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, New Jersey, and Missouri under the ‘High Profile’ brand name.

C3 oversees approximately 275,000 square feet of cultivation and processing space, including 125,000 square feet in Michigan, 37,000 square feet in Massachusetts, and 110,000 square feet in Missouri.

Initially, the original applicant, Alexandria business Nicole Tirella, received a license via the lottery system, with plans to open Campbell County’s first dispensary in the vacant Truist Bank building off US-27 in Alexandria. However, the license was eventually obtained by C3, which changed course and decided to instead open the dispensary in Wilder on Country Drive, next to Patient Aids Home Care Equipment & Services.

Kentucky state law allows a licensee to sell their cannabis business license, provided that the buyer and the facilities comply with all legal requirements of the medical cannabis statute.

In November 2025, LINK nky reported that C3 plans to open a new ‘High Profile’ dispensary featuring a drive-through for pickups. Its hours of operation are expected to be 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week.

Currently, C3 is in the planning phase of the project, with no construction work underway on the site.

The Hurdles 

According to Johns, Bluegrass Cannacare and other regional dispensaries haven’t opened yet due to crop limitations. Currently, Kentucky has only four licensed cannabis cultivators in operation, which constrains the total supply available to dispensaries. Moreover, federal law requires cannabis cultivators to be located within Kentucky, limiting the amount of cannabis dispensaries can obtain to sell.

“The issue we’re facing is just the crop limitation, because right now, there has been three approved dispensaries as of the beginning of January, so it’s three different stores vying for what little crop is out there, because each of those cultivators is only allowed to grow so many square feet,” he said.

Kentucky’s first licensed cannabis cultivator, Armory Kentucky LLC in Mayfield, began growing at its facility last July. Typically, a cannabis plant takes four to six months to grow, Johns said. This means that dispensaries would just now be receiving the first yields of cannabis from cultivators. With limited supply, dispensaries are competing for a slice of the available yield.

“The smaller operation, cultivator-wise – those guys are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Johns said. “It’s, ‘do we grow our entire square footage and sell it one crop, and then we have to wait another four to six months to recoup anything?’ The average life growth of a cannabis plant is four to six months.”

When dispensaries do open in Northern Kentucky, Johns warned that customers should be prepared for “sticker shock” due to limited supply and high demand.

“The initial price, the first round everywhere, is going to be higher than what people are expecting,” he said. “But it’s just because the quantity of the product is not there. It’s not a quality issue, it’s a quantity issue.”

In spite of the setbacks faced by local dispensaries, the first medical cannabis facility in Northern Kentucky opened last week. Bison Processing LLC cut the ribbon to its new facility in Dayton on Jan. 16.

Bison Processing will handle Kentucky-grown cannabis and convert it into safe, lab-tested medical products like tinctures, edibles, and topicals for patients registered in the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Program.

“We’re the only ones that can make any processed goods, so any gummies that until another place gets licensed, any vapes, any concentrates, all of that, we’re the only people in the state that can be producing it,” Director of Extraction at Bison Processing Donny Petarra said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “So, it’s really beneficial to those stores and those dispensaries who haven’t really been able to have anything else on their shelves, other than flower from the couple of other groups that are available.”

Bison Processing will initially produce gummies, with plans to expand into vapes and other vaporizer-friendly concentrates. It is the first facility of its kind in Kentucky.

This story includes reporting from LINK nky’s Haley Parnell.