Medical marijuana dispensary planned for State Road

Retail site to be separate from grow operation.

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Geoff Rose, CEO of Patient Centric, has taken initial steps to obtain a recreational marijuana license.

Patient Centric of Martha’s Vineyard plans to operate its retail medical marijuana dispensary at 510 State Rd. in West Tisbury, according to an application filed with the West Tisbury Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) last week.

Patient Centric, owned by Island businessman Geoff Rose, is a for-profit company created to cultivate and dispense medical marijuana to medically-approved patients.

The application for retail space follows approval by the ZBA on August 17 of Patient Centric plans to operate its marijuana cultivation operation in a facility to be built on land owned by Big Sky tent rentals on Dr. Fisher Road in West Tisbury.

The ZBA also approved Big Sky plans to construct a building to house the cultivation operation at the same meeting. Permitting work for construction can begin after a mandatory 20-day appeal period is satisfied.

Consideration of the retail application by the ZBA will likely take place in October, given the backlog of applications in the queue, Clare Harrington, ZBA administrator, said this week.

Patient Centric initially planned to house cultivation and retail operations at the same site, but community feedback and and simplification of compliance with state law led Mr. Rose to choose to have a retail site separate from the cultivation site.

Patient Centric plans to rent 705 square feet of space in a building known as “the log cabin,” owned by Scott McArthur and Vicki Thurber and currently occupied by Julie Robinson Interiors.

In an interview at her shop this week, Ms. Robinson said she plans to move her business to her West Tisbury home by the end of October. “I’m not retiring, just moving the business to my home. Same phone, same email, something I’ve been planning for a while,” Ms. Robinson told The Times.

Geoff Rose filed an application for a medical marijuana dispensary (yellow star) at 510 State Road. The grow operation (red star) will be located on Dr. Fisher Road.

In the application for approval of his retail plans, Patient Centric proprietor Geoff Rose detailed plans for security staffing and projected patient levels.

The retail site will have passive infrared cameras around the building perimeter as well as inside the building in area where marijuana is sold or stored.

In addition, Mr. Rose said he will install a product safe in which marijuana will be stored. The safe will be protected with biometric controls or an electronic card access control system with the capability to report all access events.

He estimated that the company will serve about 300 customers in the first year, rising to nearly 400 patients by year three. The dispensary will employ two people initially and 2.5 people by year three.

The plan for the Island’s only medical marijuana facility has been in the planning and approval stages for more than a year. Mr. Rose received approval from the Martha’s Vineyard Commission in July after a five-month review and public hearing process.