VIENNA COUPLE FILES FOR WILTON MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY

WILTON - A Vienna couple have applied to the state to operate a
medical marijuana dispensary in the Dexter building at 932 Route 2
East, the same site chosen by two other dispensary applicants.

Timothy and Jennifer Smale will present their plans to the town
Planning Board at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 1, at the town office.

The Smales turned their application for the Franklin, Oxford and
Androscoggin zone into the Department of Health and Human Services on
Friday, the deadline for filing. According to the DHHS website, 29
applications have been received to operate medical marijuana
dispensaries in the eight designated zones of Maine. Results are
expected to be announced on July 9.

Although they filed their application on deadline without first
receiving the town's permit approval, the process calls for having a
building in mind, the landlord's willingness to lease or sell the
property and evidence from the town that they would support the
facility, Timothy Smale said Monday. This is one of the properties
being considered, he said, the couple is only applying within this
local zone.

The town has approved an application from Lucas Sirois and Chad
Crandall for Ahead Care at the same site.

Smale said he believes they bring experience and education to their
plans. Timothy has an master's degree in business administration and
Jennifer has a business degree. After 30, they years decided to take
a break from their careers. He then decided to make a commitment to
helping patients attain medical cannabis at reasonable prices, he
said.

Last summer the couple went to Oakland, Calif., working for CannBe,
an offshoot of Harborside Health Center, one of the nation's largest
proponents of medical cannabis. It offers consultations, helping
clients prepare business plans, financial plans and visiting medical
cannabis sites.

Timothy said he was attracted to a model called medical cannabis
collectives because they focus more on patient needs rather than the
medicine, he said.

After Maine began action on last November's vote on medical
marijuana, the couple returned to Maine this spring with "the skills,
talents and desire to serve patients," he said.

"There's a lot of misinformation and a lot of illegal players," he
said. "With half of the public struggling to accept it, leadership is
needed. We have that leadership and desire."

The Smales want to raise the level of professionalism in the
industry, they said.

"A lot of mistakes were made in California but the application and
license process found in Maine has been a good fix for some of those
problems," he said.

Whether Ahead Care or the Smales will ever operate a medical
marijuana dispensary in Wilton is up to the DHHS.

The Smales permit application in Wilton is also contingent on whether
Ahead Care is accepted or not, said Paul Montague, code enforcement
officer.