First Melrose Recreational Marijuana Sales Begin

MELROSE, MA — Garden Remedies, the medical marijuana retailer on the outskirts of Melrose, will celebrate the first recreational adult-use sales in the city Saturday.

Garden Remedies is offering sales for both medical and recreational usage from the same facility on Broadway near Lowe's and Town Line Luxury Lanes bowling. There will be a socially distanced ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon.

Garden Remedies was approved to start selling for recreational use Aug. 25. It is the first dispensary in greater Boston with three recreational and three medical dispensaries all operating at the same time — the maximum number allowed in Massachusetts.

Early last year the then-Board of Aldermen voted to restrict the city's marijuana sales to the area near Garden Remedies. The Planning Board has been pushing for an additional recreational marijuana shop — first in the lower Washington Street area and then downtown — but both received pushback from the city.

Garden Remedies said last year it expects its business to roughly triple how many customers it serves to 120-150 per day when it opens for recreational sales. It's unknown if that estimate still holds during the pandemic.