'Green Mile?' Niles Township businesses selling to dispensaries
NILES CHARTER TOWNSHIP, Mich.-- Niles Charter Township has 10 applications and counting for marijuana retail licenses along a mile and a half of highway, just one month after the township passed an ordinance allowing pot shops within its limits.
The ordinance allows an unlimited number of marijuana retail licenses, so retailers are coming in with deep pockets, or what one business owner called "pot pockets", and buying locations.
Some are already calling this corridor "The Green Mile."
"I feel like this has been a forgotten little stretch," said Silvio Martino, owner of Jay's Lounge. "I often say the only cars you see after 6 p.m. are either coming in here or leaving here."
Jay’s Lounge has been around for 63 years, but now the community staple is saying goodbye, but see you later, announcing plans to move down the road across the state line into The Clover Hotel.
"I don't see us slowing down," Martino said. "I feel like we can carry our business with our reputation, you know, two miles south."
A dispensary will take its place.
"We are under contract to sell this place. We're going to be selling it to Happy Daze Cannabis," he said.
ABC57 learned that’s not an uncommon narrative playing out in Niles Charter Township.
"I don't think this stretch of land or stretch of highway has ever been so valuable, so it's one of those times, the time was right," Martino said.
It's happening along the corridor where Indiana 933 becomes Michigan 51 a.k.a. 11th Street.
"It's a very heavily trafficked road from south bend, they're going to get a ton of business from that area," one business owner said.
The ordinance, passed in April, allows for an "unlimited" number of marijuana retail licenses.
This map shows the 10 locations where applications have already been submitted according to the township supervisor.
Niles Township Marijuana License Applications
One of those locations, of course, is Jay’s Lounge.
"I wanted to make sure that this went into the hands of a good family, and it did," Martino said. "Really good people. I had the chance to meet them; I respect their vision and what they have in store for this place."
Another is Nail Connections, which would move into Niles city limits and let a dispensary take its place, according to staff Thursday.
And another location is Michiana Rental.
"I think the businesses that are coming in Are going to bring more business, and more business is good," said Daniel Tiser, president of Michiana Rental.
Tiser said he’s moving all his operations into the warehouse he owns next-door, allowing a dispensary to take over his current storefront.
"We're going to revamp that whole place to be a retail store for us, so for us, it's going to be a very good move," he said.
It’s still unclear how many dispensaries will actually open along this corridor; they must get a license, then an adult-use marihuana permit, then an occupancy permit, and each location has to meet different requirements. So it’s all to be seen, but it’s clear the corridor is changing, and "The Green Mile" could become a reality shortly.