Green Cross Colorado LLC, has won approval to open the state’s first drive-thru retail cannabis dispensary as Tumbleweed Express is set to open at a former carwash in Parachute, the Post Independent reports. The service will have to follow the same rules and regulations as the other retail shops in the state.
Parachute Town Manager Stuart McArthur welcomed the “creative and innovative idea,” adding that about $310,000 out of about $1.05 million of the town’s sales tax receipts were derived from cannabis sales in 2016 – or about 30 percent. He said that other businesses, such as restaurants, are also benefitting from the legal cannabis industry’s presence in the town.
In a memo to the Parachute Board of Trustees, McArthur wrote that in December 2016, 26.8 percent of the town’s sales tax was from recreational cannabis sales – $25,016 out of $93,320 total.
“The percentage is down from previous months, indicating that other sales tax is increasing as a percentage of the total,” he wrote.
Parachute had previously barred cannabis operations in the town, but the decision was reversed in June 2015. According to the report, earlier this month at a Rifle Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Mayor Roy McClung said that despite his personal feeling about legal cannabis the town’s economy would have been in serious trouble without it.
Tumbleweed Express is set to open next month.