Three of the four companies state health officials invited to apply for a medical marijuana dispensary license in counties that don't yet have a planned facility want to set up shop in Boston, according to the Department of Public Health.
JCS Holdings Inc.; Mass Medicum Corp.; and Patriot Care Corp. each submitted an application by yesterday's deadline, identifying the city as one of two proposed locations for a dispensary.
"We are a local, primarily Boston-based group, and clearly there's a need to be filled," said Dr. James Kurnick, a cancer researcher and CEO of Mass Medicum, which hopes to open a dispensary at 57 Stuart St., on the edge of Chinatown, next summer.
JCS Holdings, which is doing business as The Haven Center, has proposed locating in Allston, also in Suffolk County.
"We ... look forward to working with neighbors, community business leaders and local officials to be sure any facility we construct is an asset to the community and to all who are seeking help with chronic pain," Executive Director Christopher Taloumis said in a statement.
Both his company and Mass Medicum also identified Taunton in Bristol County as a proposed location. And Patriot Care — the only applicant officials allowed to apply for two more licenses to add to the provisional one it was awarded for a Lowell dispensary — also proposed Greenfield in Franklin County as a location. The fourth company, Coastal Compassion Inc., wants to open a facility in Fairhaven in Bristol County.
All four applicants received lower scores earlier this year than other companies that were approved for a license in their selected counties. But because the DPH deemed the four to be qualified, it invited them to resubmit an application, this time in any of the seven counties without an approved facility: Suffolk, Nantucket, Hampden, Franklin, Dukes, Bristol and Berkshire.
The four companies were allowed to apply for up to two locations but will only be selected to proceed with one after DPH's review. The department expects to complete the selection process in October.
DPH gave preliminary approval to 20 applicants earlier this year, but nearly half of them were later disqualified due to misrepresentations or other problems.
"It's been a long, convoluted process," Kurnick said.