Sometime later this summer, Super Bowl XXXIV champion Grant Wistrom will start working part-time in Springfield as a budtender, said Revival 98 dispensary general manager Jason Bach.
“Grant is very excited about the project,” Bach told the News-Leader Thursday morning. “He wants to be here two or three days a week working with me … He’s going to be a hands-on owner.”
A Joplin native, Wistrom played for the St. Louis Rams and the Seattle Seahawks in the late ’90s and 2000s, getting his start with the Cardinals football team at Webb City High School, according to News-Leader archives.
Bach said that Revival 98 will be entering the cannabis business at a time when the state’s cultivation and manufacturing systems will allow for more steady supplies than last fall, when lawful medical marijuana sales first began at a handful of Missouri dispensaries. (More than 100 out of roughly 192 dispensaries allowed by the state constitution are now certified to operate, according to state records dated May 21.)
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What products will the dispensary carr?
Revival 98 doesn’t expect to be stuck with the challenges many dispensaries faced in those early months: long lines with wait times of 90 minutes or more, midweek closures when stocks of cannabis flower or edibles sold out, and very limited product ranges.
Bach said Revival 98 should be able to stock cannabis flower (e.g., marijuana buds that can be smoked or vaporized), vape pens and cartridges, a “wide variety” of edibles, topicals and products including patches that deliver THC, or combinations of THC and CBD, much like smoking cessation patches deliver nicotine.
“Just like a nicotine patch, it’s a slow release,” Bach said. “It usually releases over a six to eight-hour period.”
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Cannabis patches are often worn near the wrist or the top of a person’s foot, Bach said. At this point in time, the patches are a novelty in Springfield, but Bach believes local dispensaries will soon stock them “across the board.”
When will Revival 98 open?
Bach confirmed the Springfield-based dispensary company recently completed its local business licensing and reached out to Missouri cannabis regulators with the state health department to begin the “commencement” inspection process needed to be allowed to open for sales to lawful patient cardholders.
It’s not clear how long it will take to work through the government’s requirements, Bach said, but he is hoping Revival 98 will open for business at 2872 W. Republic Road sometime in July.
Lisa Cox, a spokesperson with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, said Thursday that cannabis facilities that are “truly ready” to undertake the commencement process can expect it to take 30 to 60 days.
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“Dispensary inspection processes tend to be less complex than the processes for cultivation and manufacturing facilities,” Cox said by email, “so dispensaries tend to move more quickly than the other facility types if they have everything ready for us.”
When state applications for medical cannabis business licenses came open in 2019, Revival 98 made a play for a permit to sell marijuana along with permits to grow it and manufacture cannabis-infused products, state records showed.
The company secured a big building on Austin Avenue in a part of Springfield filled with warehouse-style spaces and other business operations. That cultivation application didn’t go through, so the company shifted gears by exercising its cancel option on the big building, then moving to the smaller facility on Republic Road, Wistrom told the News-Leader back in September.
Bach said this week that Revival 98 is “happy to be at this spot” at the corner of Republic Road and Glenn Avenue, next to a Commerce Bank location and across the street from Planet Fitness.
“Just that new growth (on West Republic Road) has been huge for the city,” Bach said. “It kind of worked out to where this property was available, it met all of the zoning requirements, and it met our traffic requirements that we were looking for on the street.”
Reach News-Leader reporter Gregory Holman by emailing gholman@gannett.com. Please consider subscribing to support vital local journalism.
