Alaska's first retail marijuana store set to open at 'high noon' two years after vote

A store in Alaska was set on Saturday to be the first in the state offering retail marijuana sales, with a grand opening scheduled for what the operators were calling “high noon”.

The planned opening of Herbal Outfitters in Valdez comes nearly two years after voters approved allowing people 21 and older to recreationally use pot.

Herbal Outfitters’ offerings will mark the first time it is legal to buy pot under the voter initiative approved in November 2014. Passage of the measure made it legal under state law to possess up to an ounce of marijuana outside of a home.

The Valdez opening comes less than a week after the opening of the state’s first testing lab, CannTest, in Anchorage. The testing business opened on Monday after clearing regulatory hurdles days earlier. It will test cannabis flowers, edibles and concentrates.

Herbal Outfitters’ general manager, Derek Morris, said the store would initially carry only dried cannabis flowers. He said manufacturers of edibles and concentrates were still in various stages of the permitting process.

Morris said the operators expected to be steadily busy. People from around the state, including Anchorage, have said they plan to make the trip for the grand opening, he said.

In Fairbanks, two marijuana retail stores are planning to open next week after final inspections are completed, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. A third Fairbanks store plans to open in about one month.