A retail space at 297 Newbury St. could become home to an appointment-only cannabis dispensary that would of-fer preferential service to Back Bay residents.
Representatives for Ember Gardens, including CFO Shane Hyde, outlined their proposal Aug. 27 during a vir-tual meeting sponsored by the city’s Office of Neighbor-hood Services.
The hours of operation would be 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, with one hour each day dedicated to serving only Back Bay residents, representatives said, and the dispen-sary is expected to serve about 45 customers an hour.
Also, the dispensary would be located near the Hynes MBTA station, among other options for public transportation options, and offer price discounts on products to customers who travel via public tranporation instead of driving.
Ember Gardens would devote most of its 1,300 square feet space to a retail showroom, and signage on-site would be limited to a single sign in the window.
The menu would also be limited selection of items manufactured at its Plymouth County production facili-ty, according to Ember Gardens representatives.
The dispensary expects to hire around 20 employees, all of whom must be Boston residents at the start of their employment, and Ember Gardens has pledged that 50 percent of new hires including at the management level would be women or minorities.
Also, Ember Gardens has pledged that it would have a profit-sharing plan whereby 5 percent of sales would go to employees who have been the company for at least a year.
Aaron Washington, a 28-year veteran of the Massa-chusetts State Police who was on hand for the virtual meeting, will head up security for Ember Gardens, and said their top priority will be ensuring that its products don’t end up in the hands of minors.
Besides upon using state-of-the-art technology to verify each customer is at least 21 years of age upon en-tering the dispensary, security would also patrol the pe-rimeter of the building to discourage secondary transac-tions involving the sale of cannabis to minors,
Washington said, as well as open consumption of canna-bis. (And any customer caught openly consuming prod-ucts purchased at Ember Gardens in the immediate vicin-ity of the dispensary would be permanently barred from the premises, Washington added.)
As for an expected opening date, Ember Gardens representatives said they don’t have a timeline yet as they continue to navigate through the permitting pro-cesses at the city and state levels.
Ember Gardens will soon launch its website at em-bergardens.com and inquiries can sent via email to [email protected].