Patient Centric of Martha’s Vineyard is selling its West Tisbury locations to FFD Enterprises Ma., also known as Fine Fettle.
At a Wednesday meeting of the West Tisbury board of selectmen, the recreational marijuana dispensary and adult use community-host agreements originally held by Geoff Rose of Patient Centric were transferred to Fine Fettle.
This agreement includes the lease, contracts, and physical assets at 90 Dr. Fisher Road, including the currently operating cultivation and processing facility, as well as their testing lab and their dispensary on State Road.
Rose declined to provide the selling price.
Fine Fettle owns and operates several medical marijuana dispensaries and one adult use dispensary in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a cultivation facility, as well as Rhode Island’s only cannabis processing and manufacturing facility.
Ben Zachs, CEO of Fine Fettle, said his company is oriented heavily around compliance, and also focuses on community involvement and education, specifically in the area of substance use.
“As a company and a family, we believe in being and operating locally. We only do business to give more away. All of our host-community agreements really give back to the local community, especially focusing on substance abuse and being an educational leader,” Zachs said.
He noted their chief compliance and security director, Mike Doyle, is a 28-year veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration, and a Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) inspector for two years.
Zachs said the family-owned business has been in the telecommunications sphere for 50 years. Four years ago, they entered into the medical marijuana field with an interest in philanthropic work in healthcare, and substance use.
Fine Fettle operates three of the 18 medical dispensaries in Connecticut, and Zachs said each location is run fully by trained pharmacists.
“Our standard operating procedure is run around compliance, understanding medication in cannabis, and the interplay between various drugs through the training of our pharmacists,” Zachs said.
According to Zachs, Fine Fettle has worked across all three levels of the supply chain: retail, processing and manufacturing, and cultivation, and said he is excited to bring this work to the Island.
He said the company plans to keep all current Patient Centric staff, and has sent a notarized change of ownership application form to the CCC.
Fine Fettle has also filed amendments to the special permits held by Patient Centric with the West Tisbury zoning board of appeals, which consist of changes to the sign and to ownership and operation.
Zachs said the foremost goal of Fine Fettle is to do good for the patients, as well as customers at recreational marijuana locations.
“We look at the adult use market like the data says, where 92 percent of customers are actually using cannabis for wellness and medical purposes, versus just social. We really take that to heart,” he said.
He added that the company offers competitive benefits, and because they are a medical facility, have been able to vaccinate a significant portion of their staff, including 85 percent in Connecticut, and almost 25 percent in Massachusetts.
“That’s something we are really proud of,” he said.
Rose said he has been advocating for the safe and responsible use of cannabis in the community for more than eight years, and he feels fortunate to pass the torch to a family company that operates with similar principles and practices as Patient Centric.
“I think, philosophically, we operate on the same basis. The fact that they are steeped in the medical community was very important to me because they will bring best practices to the community,” he said.
He added that Fine Fettle has a strong involvement in the cultivation and processing world, as well as in the adult use industry.
“Handing off, if you will, the 8½-year-old child that I’ve brought to this point, I couldn’t be more pleased, and I hope the town embraces them as I have,” Rose said.
In a separate phone conversation with The Times, Rose said he will continue to “operate in the market,” and will retain his Vineyard Haven adult-use operation, which will source cannabis from Fine Fettle.
“We will continue to work very closely together,” he said.
