Three pot shops receive OK from state to open next week

Ted S. Warren/Associated Press/File/Associated Press

Three recreational marijuana shops can open as early as next week after state regulators gave them the necessary approval Thursday.

Alternative Therapies Group Inc. in Salisbury, Solar Therapeutics Inc. in Somerset, and 253 Organic LLC in Montague each received their “commence operations” notices from the Cannabis Control Commission, allowing the stores to open after three calendar days. Each store can open as early as Monday.

The stores will be each town’s first recreational pot shop, and the Salisbury store will be the first in a town directly on the New Hampshire border.

Alternative Therapies Group has one other recreational store in Salem, which was the third adult-use store to open in the state. The Salem store began on an appointment-only basis but has since dropped that requirement. Alternative Therapies Group also has a provisional license to open a store in Amesbury.

Solar Therapeutics and 253 Organic have not submitted applications to the state to open other stores, according to the latest data from the commission.