After months of hearings and delays, the state has issued a license for McRory's Sunnyhill Nursery of Eustis and its affiliate, GrowHealthy of Lake Wales, to start growing, producing and dispensing low-THC cannabis and medical marijuana.
Don Clifford, GrowHealthy's chief executive officer, said nearly $2.5 million worth of renovations are nearly complete on the 185,000-square-foot building, a former mattress factory, that the company purchased for $2 million two years ago to grow marijuana in an indoor, controlled environment. The facility is on 33 acres about two miles southwest of downtown at 309 S. Acuff Road, which borders the Lake Wales Municipal Airport.
McRory's Sunnyhill/Grow Healthy is the seventh company the state has licensed - and the license comes more than a year after the other six licenses were granted to supply medicinal marijuana products in five regions of the state.
In a statement from the Florida Department of Health, media and marketing manager Sara Revell said Tuesday afternoon, "The department has reached a settlement agreement with McRory's Sunnyhill Nursery and they will be given authority to begin operating as a dispensing organization."
"Our facility is ready to move forward," Clifford said. "It will take about 45 days to get our certificate of occupancy from the city of Lake Wales. Then the state will inspect us. If the state Department of Health approves our facility, we hope to start growing medicinal product in the next 60 to 70 days."
Lake Wales City Manager Ken Fields said the city has had a fantastic relationship with the company, saying "they have been very cooperative, very open with us."
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