KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A massive marijuana growing operation is now expanding to keep up with record sales in St. Louis and beyond. People from outside the state are fueling the growing surge since recreational sales began in February.
More and more it seems the road to weed leads to Missouri.
“It’s like running a restaurant,” said Paul Baker, general manager of the GreenLight dispensary on the Missouri/Kansas state line in Kansas City.
It’s the busiest of Greenlight’s 14 dispensaries in Missouri. It is the McDonald’s of marijuana sales, with cars typically 10 or more deep in the drive-through, and workers inside filling orders like they’re Happy Meals.
It was nowhere near this busy when only medical marijuana was legal in Missouri, Baker said.
“That changed Feb. 2 (the first day of recreational sales). They opened the door, we went from about 10 associates to 35 associates. We need it. We need more,” he said.
Most of the license plates in his parking lot are from Kansas where marijuana is still illegal. Buying it in Missouri, however, is not. The state line location now typically sells more than $100,000 worth of product daily, three to four times more than Greenlight’s St. Louis dispensaries.
Most of Greenlight’s Missouri marijuana supply is grown at a former Pepsi-Cola plant in Kansas City. There are now about 20,000 pot plants in various stages of…