A legal marijuana dispensary, with ‘surf shop-meets-weed shop’ vibes, is coming to Cape May County

Come the end of summer, Cape May County could see what may be its first legal cannabis dispensary open for business.

Shore House Canna LLC, located at 124 Sunset Blvd. in West Cape May, hopes to start legally selling cannabis by Labor Day — a move that would make it not only the county’s first legal dispensary, but among the first in any beach town in New Jersey, save for Atlantic City.

“We can smell the finish,” said Dave Christian, a principal with Shore House Canna.

The opening of Shore House Canna will cap off a two-and-a-half-year journey for Christian, fellow principal Nicole Melchiorre and CEO Tomas Nuscis.

Nuscis, the owner of Pappy’s Pig Roast & Barbecue in Marmora, Cape May County, has been interested in the cannabis industry since New Jersey started medical marijuana sales about a decade ago, Christian said.

Finding the right town — and one that would allow them to open — was the difficult part, Christian said. That’s not unique in New Jersey. An estimated 70% of the state’s municipalities have opted out of allowing marijuana businesses, leaving about 170 marijuana-friendly towns in the state. Of those that opted in, Christian said, many adopted restrictive zoning rules that made opening a marijuana business nearly impossible.

“Lots of people were scared of [cannabis] in the early days, and still are,” Christian said. “They restricted themselves so much, there was no way to put a legal cannabis shop in their town.”

Shore House Canna, however, ultimately found a welcoming home in West Cape May, which Christian credits to Mayor Carol E. Sabo.

Still, the regulatory process has not yet run its course, and they’re essentially waiting on approval from the state to open. They initially hoped to start sales on the unofficial marijuana holiday of 4/20, and then Memorial Day, and the Fourth of July after that.

“The timeline hasn’t been something we can control a lot,” Melchiorre said, adding that a Labor Day opening is “a lofty goal.”

Vibe-wise, Shore House Canna hopes to bring a more casual atmosphere to legal weed sales in New Jersey. Typically, marijuana dispensaries in the state run on a staid, pharmacy-type model, which Christian credited to the prevalence of multistate corporate cannabis operators in New Jersey.

Instead, Shore House Canna aims to have a style along the lines of “surf shop-meets-weed shop,” Christian said.

“We expect people with sandy, bare feet coming in and shopping for weed,” Christian said. “Come in with a wet bathing suit and pick up a pre-roll.”

A big part of that planned informality is a walk-up window — or “rollup window,” as Shore House Canna calls it. A rare, if not unheard of, sight in New Jersey, it will allow customers to preorder their selections ahead on an app, and instead of standing in line, they can walk up to the bank teller-like window and grab their order to go.

In the future, the company also hopes to offer delivery to customers nearby, once New Jersey gets that system up and running. No consumption lounge, where customers can consume the marijuana they buy on-site, is planned.

While the shop is eyeing an opening at the end of summer, Christian said he expects business to remain steady throughout the year. The nearest operating dispensaries, he said, are in Vineland, Egg Harbor, and Atlantic City, about 45 minutes to an hour from West Cape May. Having a dispensary in town, he said, will save all cannabis consumers — even those who use it medically — that trouble. (Two other dispensaries, Sea & Leaf LLC and Potent Petal LLC, are reportedly working to open in the county as well.)

But then, of course, there’s always next summer.

“We will be bursting at the seams,” Christian said.