2021 FEB. 20 ISSUE: MORE HURDLES FOR MEDICAL CANNABIS DISPENSARY

Perhaps this is yet another scene in Corrales’ medical marijuana card holders’ Waiting for Godot moment…calls to Southwest Organic Producers, SWOP, in Albuquerque asking when the Corrales retail outlet would open revealed “I have no idea…they keep saying ‘in two weeks,’ every time we ask. ‘In two weeks.’” The end of last year there was a brief burst of increased activity at the eastern end of the former Kim Jew property at 4604 Corrales Road, as it appeared that the retail cannabis dispensary was almost ready to open. A SWOP source said in December that “furniture, including display cases” were being bought for the Corrales site.

Spencer Komadina, one of the project’s partners, said then that the New Mexico Department of Health was expected to do its inspection the week of December 13, and that the shop would then hold its soft open, with a grand opening following not far behind. And yet. In an email February 11, Komadina said “Corrales is making us connect to the sewer before we can open…That will be done soon.”

According to Planning and Zoning administrator Laurie Stout, on November 20, 2019, the site development plan for SWOP was approved by the P&Z commission. A week later on November 27, Stout sent a letter to SWOP outlining the required next moves. It said, in part, “your next step is to have your chosen contractor pull a building permit” and “an item discussed during the meeting was the tie-in needed to the Village wastewater system. Michael Chavez oversees this.” Stout provided his email. “Both are common next steps after a site plan approval.”

But, as Stout put it, “No building permit application was received until recently —all work was done without a permit and so the permit had to be issued retroactively, which comes with a double fee— and the wastewater tie-in is now underway.” She added, “This could have been accomplished in November of 2019.”

The Corrales outlet, whenever it opens at the corner of Corrales Road and Rincon Road, just north of Perea’s restaurant, at least now does have new SWOP signage. And the dispensary should benefit from what another SWOP partner, Aaron Brogdon, has described as “better quality product,” grown right in Corrales. The Komadina property at 379 Camino de Corrales del Norte has three greenhouses, as well as a “head house,” or nursery, for new plants.