The Company's first medical dispensary in New Jersey is expected to open in Atlantic City in the first quarter of 2020. The 1,300-square-foot facility, located just off the boardwalk on S. New York Avenue, will open as a Be. retail store and will service Atlantic City's estimated 24 million annual visitors. The Company is slated to open a larger Be. flagship facility in the same location pending adult use legalization. The locations of the Company's additional future dispensary sites in New Jersey have yet to be determined.
"We are thrilled to be entering the New Jersey market, my home-state and our milestone tenth state market," said Beth Stavola, Chief Strategy Officer of iAnthus and CEO of MPX New Jersey. "With this expansion, we will bring to New Jersey not only clean, safe, and high-quality cannabis products, but jobs and increased economic activity in the Pleasantville and Atlantic City areas. We greatly look forward to servicing the medical marijuana community and being part of a path forward toward full adult-legalization."
New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the U.S. with approximately nine million residents, is currently a medical-use cannabis market. In just under two years since Governor Murphy took office, the number of recommending physicians in the New Jersey Medicinal Marijuana Program has doubled, and the number of patients has more than tripled to more than 66,000. Patients continue to enroll at a rate of approximately 500 a week.