Durango Organics, owned by Aaron Miles and Jonny Radding of Durango, quietly opened to patients on Dec. 8 and has spent the past few weeks settling into their first location outside of La Plata County.
The new Cortez location's client base is growing by the day, as the brand's medical marijuana patients who made the 40-minute trek to the original dispensary in Durango now have another option closer to home.
"Business has been good," said Scottie Sindelar, manager of the new Cortez location.
"A lot of people, I think, shop at our store in Durango that live in Mancos, Dolores or Cortez... We're getting a lot of their (Durango store's) patients."
The product inventory is smaller than the original store in Durango - the Cortez location offers nine strains of marijuana compared with the original Durango location's 40 strains - but the quality-centric cornerstone of the business remains the same, Sindelar says.
"We grow all our own flowers in house at our grow facility in Durango," he said. "The quality of our products speaks for itself."
The store also offers a wide selection of edibles and topicals, Sindelar says.
Hallie Hallberg, a budtender at the Cortez location, says a big part of the Durango Organics brand is customer service and intricate product knowledge.
"We're willing to listen to patients and make suggestions based on what they're using it for," Hallberg said, adding, "Guiding with the milligrams and the side effects is really important, especially for a lot of first-time users."
Although Durango Organics is the third medical dispensary in Cortez, it hopes to be one of the city's first retail marijuana shops.
The company applied for a retail license earlier this fall, but ran into a zoning snag with the city because of a provision that disallowed retail marijuana sites within 1,500 feet of public parks. Durango Organics is around the corner from Parque de Vida. The city revised the park set-back provision in November, and Durango Organic's retail permit application is pending.
Sindelar says the shop would need to hire at least three additional employees if a retail license is granted.
Durango Organics medical dispensary is at 1104 N. Main Street, and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
