Ack natural11/21/2023 ![]() ![]() The plants are based in rock wool-which is a combination of basalt and limestone that creates a cotton-candy-like substance. ![]() All of the cannabis is grown hydroponically with no soil. ![]() “It’s more than a nuclear power plant,” Sullivan joked. Security is tight throughout the building, with access cards to allow only the necessary staff into certain areas, and seventy-five cameras mounted strategically inside and out. The multimillion-dollar facility packs all of the dispensary’s operations into three floors, with the grow rooms below grade, retail operations on the first floor and the second floor designed for the laboratory and testing, along with hanging, curing, trimming and packaging. The 13,000-square-foot ACK Natural building is quite simply something to behold. People are finding relief with that and it’s helping with the acceptance.” “From when we started this four years ago, there’s a big jump in the amount of people who either use cannabis or admit they use cannabis, because I think even admitting it is a little bit more publicly acceptable now. I think a lot less people are smoking and are consuming cannabis in other ways, whether it’s chocolates, lozenges, tinctures, creams a lot of people are using it for medicine, and CBD has become widespread and THC on the medical side of things. “The boogie man is out of the room,” he said. Recreational marijuana is now legal in seventeen states. Sullivan added that in the nearly five years since Massachusetts legalized recreational marijuana, much of the stigma around cannabis consumption has ebbed. To have this much invested and not really know the end market, but I think ultimately people who know they can get medical-grade-quality cannabis that was grown and produced in an environment like this will give them a lot of confidence.” So we believe we have a solid business, but we’ll find out when we open the doors. “We used the numbers from the Nantucket Data Platform, the amount of people who come and go each year, and budget our projections monthly based on the number of people, as well as statistics the state gives us on the number of people who actually consume cannabis. “We think we have crunched the numbers really well,” Sullivan said. With ACK Natural poised to open its doors, does the island have enough demand for cannabis to support two dispensaries on a year-round basis? “We’re really proud to be bringing local jobs to the island.” Nantucket’s first cannabis dispensary, The Green Lady, opened nearly two years ago on Amelia Drive. “We wanted people who have roots here,” Sullivan said. The dispensary’s head cultivator Jamie Briard, for example, is a fifth-generation Nantucketer. “We’ve had a great working relationship with the town but it took time for this stuff to play out.”ĪCK Natural will have twenty-five year-round employees in various roles within the dispensary, and Sullivan emphasized that he and his partners have made it a priority to hire local island residents for those jobs. “There’s a lot of big players in the industry-giant, multi- state operators that are involved in a lot of places-and to go up against them, it was challenging to get to this point,” Sullivan added. Two years ago, Sullivan and his partners secured one of the two cannabis dispensary licenses the Nantucket Select Board was willing to grant for the island after fending off a competing bid from Mass Medi-Spa, a nonprofit backed by the cannabis conglomerate Acreage Holdings. “There were a million ups and downs and setbacks it’s an incredible process,” said Sullivan, sitting in the sleek retail space that customers will see first when they enter the dispensary at 17 Spearhead Drive, located among the industrial lots north of Nantucket Memorial Airport off Old South Road. If all goes according to plan, they will open the doors of ACK Natural to the public in June. ![]() Partners Mike Sullivan, Doug Leighton and Zach Harvey are entering their fourth year of navigating the state’s licensing and regulatory gauntlet for cannabis dispensaries, but are now on the verge of seeing their vision become a reality. This month, the flowers from those plants will be the first crop harvested by Nantucket’s second licensed cannabis dispensary, ACK Natural. In a high-tech, subterranean nursery hidden twenty-four feet beneath the ground of a small lot near the airport, hundreds of marijuana plants are growing under the glare of LED grow lights, aided by a complex water and nutrient delivery system. Written By: Jason Graziadei | Photography By: Brian Sager Nantucket’s second cannabis dispensary is in full bloom. ![]()
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