Daily Sitka Sentinel

Sitka Retailer Selling Home-Grown Pot

By BRIELLE SCHAEFFER 

Sentinel Staff Writer

Sitka’s second marijuana retailer – and first cultivation facility – is open for business.

Northern Lights Indoor Gardens began selling its home-grown marijuana on Feb. 16 in the Sawmill Creek Plaza. 

Micah Miller checks out a crop of marijuana plants in his Sawmill Creek Plaza grow operation in December. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

“It’s finally happened,” owner Micah Miller said.

He opened his doors with 30 pounds of product for sale in different quantities up to a half-ounce and wrapped as joints. But that’s still not enough to keep up with demand in the state, he said.  

“I get a call every day from somebody up north,” Miller said. “They are all looking for product. It’s a grower’s market.” 

Sitka’s first marijuana retailer, Weed Dudes, is also located in the same strip mall as Miller’s garden and shop.

On a recent sunny afternoon, a half-dozen people came into Miller’s store in the span of 20 minutes to browse the five featured strains of Acapulco Gold, Big Pineapple, Chem Dawg, Pineapple Express and Sitka Sour Al.

Business has been good, he said, with sales of about a pound of pot per day. He said he expects it to pick up as commercial fishermen come to town for herring season in March.

“At that rate I’ll be done in 30 days,” he said.

But Miller’s next crop of marijuana won’t be ready until late March.

“My doors will be closed at some moment for a minute,” he said. “Really, I wish we had twice the operation.”

Miller’s first batch of marijuana was ready for sale earlier this year but when his retail license was delayed he sold some of it in Skagway.

“I’d rather keep it in Southeast,” he said.

Miller initially applied for a license to allow customers to consume pot on-site, but the state’s Marijuana Control Board quashed that proposal for now. 

“They’re getting a little nervous about it because we’re the first state to do it,” he said. 

He still hopes to have a marijuana smoke lounge in the future for the tourist market.

“We’d like to have them smoke here so they’re not doing it on the streets,” he said, “especially in the Totem Park area. “We don’t want our containers ending up there.”

He also plans on selling marijuana edibles and hash when he’s able to get those things from a manufacturer in Fairbanks. Miller expects to be getting those products in a few more weeks, he said. 

Per state regulation, all of Miller’s product has been tested for potency and microbials by state-licensed testing facility Cannatest in Anchorage.

The state issues four different kinds of marijuana licenses: cultivation, testing, manufacturing and retail. 

Sitka’s other licensed marijuana cultivation/retail facility, Green Leaf on Halibut Point Road, owned by Aaron Bean, has not yet opened its doors.

“We’re getting ready to harvest and working on building our dispensary,” Bean said.

His product will be for sale in a couple of weeks at Weed Dudes.

Bean’s business has also applied for a marijuana product manufacturing license. 

There are two other marijuana growers trying to break into the market in Sitka: Jeremy Erickson of Vern’s Wicked Weed and Justin Brown of AKO Farms. 

Erickson has a cultivation license and had planned to have his first crop this spring. 

Brown is applying for a marijuana cultivation facility license for his business AKO Farms at 1210 Beardsley. He has also applied for a conditional use permit with the City’s Planning and Zoning Commission, which will be heard at its March 21 meeting, he said.