DELAWARE, Ohio (WCMH) — A marijuana dispensary with a pickup window will soon join the growing list of cannabis businesses in Delaware.

The city’s planning commission approved a conditional use permit on March 5 for Nar Reserve, a Michigan-based recreational and medical marijuana shop. The company is aiming to open a Delaware location inside a recently constructed shopping center at 60 Coughlin Lane and plans to use the building’s pick-up window for preplaced orders.

“It’s a pickup window, they’d have to place a preorder online. It’s not your typical fast-food drive-thru where there’s a board and you can order,” explained Ali Bazzi, a Nar Reserve managing partner and representative of the shop’s parent company, Hempnotize. “Hypothetically, you order in the morning, you say ‘I’m gonna be there between [noon] and 12:30.’ So, you’d pull up, your order would be ready, there’d be no ordering at the window.”

The Delaware dispensary will mark the brand’s second central Ohio location after the first opened in downtown Columbus at 350 E. Long St. in summer 2023. The Columbus shop began as a medical cannabis storefront but pivoted to also offer recreational after Ohio voters legalized adult-use later in 2023.

Hempnotize’s Delaware application said the Nar Reserve storefront will provide “high-quality cannabis products and services to eligible patients and customers while adhering to all applicable local and state guidelines.” The brand also operates two locations in Michigan and one in Mississippi, and it projects the Delaware shop will be open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Bazzi said the company’s lease at the Coughlin Lane site started in November. Now that the planning commission has approved their conditional use permit, city council will also review the use permit as Hempnotizes completes its layout plans for the shop. Delaware officials will then green light those designs before construction can begin.

Once completed, Nar Reserve will join the exclusive group of Delaware County dispensaries, like Bear River Dispensaries, which is currently located at 26 Moore St. but is planning to move to vacant retail space at 222 E. William St. 

Bear River’s relocation plan came after Delaware City Council passed an ordinance last year that bans establishments whose business “is the sale of tobacco or related products, vapor or vapor products, or cannabis” from being located within 500 feet of a school, church, library, playground or park.

Another dispensary, Ascend Cannabis, received approval in January from Orange Township officials to open a new Delaware County location at 3812 E. Powell Road, a former Prep Academy Schools and Turkey Daycare. However, Polaris Fashion Place’s developer spoke against the proposal, arguing the plan isn’t “consistent with a first-class development.”