Lume Cannabis Co. has opened an adult-use recreational marijuana business in the City of Petersburg.

A new industry sparked to life in Monroe County Friday morning.

Lume Cannabis Co. opened an adult-use recreational marijuana business in the City of Petersburg.

Located at 15205 Tandem Court, the business is the first of its kind in Monroe County. It sells a variety of marijuana-related products, including buds, pre-rolls, edibles and topicals.

It also carries apparel and accessories needed for the use of its products.

“We are excited to bring Lume to Southeast Michigan,” said Joseph Stankowski, launch team leader and metric administrator for the company.

Featuring a modern aesthetic and its signature logo and colors, Lume renovated a former Monroe County Road Commission building for its new Petersburg location.

It’s open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, and from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays.

When customers enter the store, they’ll be greeted by a member of reception, who will scan customers’ IDs to ensure they are 21 or older.

Once an employee confirms age, a sales employee, referred to as a Luminary, is assigned to the customer and acts as an escort on the sales floor, showcasing the variety of products offered at the location.

“They’re kind of like a barista at Starbucks,” Stankowski said.

The sales floor is configured to group products by types — flowers, pre-rolls, concentrates and topicals are displayed together.

Edibles fall into two types: those featuring chocolate and then gummies, with products coming in varying levels of THC concentrate.

“We like to keep the products broken up like this to keep the traffic flowing smoothly,” Stankowski said.

The Petersburg store has about 22 strains of cannabis flowers from which customers can select. Wearing gloves and a mask, a staff member can help customers smell the different strains prior to purchasing them.

The strains named Jenny Kush and Birthday Cake are among the most popular, according to Stankowski.

The flowers are sealed in containers with nitrogen, which keeps them fresh for up to two years, Stankowski said, adding that it’s a unique practice for cannabis companies in Michigan.

“Lume is the only company in Michigan to use that method,” he said.

Several products are branded to showcase their intended effect. Such products include those bearing names such as Dream, Focus, Recover, Move and Unwind.

“It’s easier for some people to conceptualize the effect,” Stankowski said.

Once customers make their selections, the Luminaries use tablets to the complete the order. In a separate room, staff members process and fulfill the order, which is then delivered to the sales floor. All orders are packaged in child-resistant bags.

Unique to Lume’s Petersburg location is a curbside room, which is used to fulfill and serve customers in their cars.

The practice, which was made possible through an executive order issued by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as part of the state’s response to COVID-19, cuts down on contact within the building and helps limit the number of people inside the building at a given time.

“COVID hasn’t really impacted the cannabis industry from a revenue standpoint,” Stankowski said. “It has changed how we do some things.”

Customers can use the curbside option to pick up orders placed on Lume’s website. A Luminary also will come to a customer’s car and facilitate selection and purchasing using a wireless tablet.

The Petersburg location will support about 20-25 jobs in the area, according to Stankowski. For the new store’s opening, employees from across the state traveled to Petersburg, he said.

“We like to lean on our Lume family,” he said.

It conducted a soft opening Thursday in preparation for Friday’s launch. It also trained employees for a week prior to the opening.

Security is highly regarded at Lume. All doors, including the sales floor, require key card access, limiting access to products and other parts of the building. Security always is on site and there are more than 50 surveillance cameras in operation, Stankowski said.

Lume selected the site in Petersburg based on zoning ordinances issued by the city.

Picking a place “really comes down to what local ordinances allow,” Stankowski said. “This location has good proximity to the highway.”

Lume operates several stores across Michigan, including locations in Adrian, Big Rapids, Evart, Honor, Kalamazoo, Mackniaw City, Neganunee, Owosso, Petoskey and Walled Lake.

Lume plans to open additional stores by the end of the year and to reach 100 locations by the end of 2024. Its next new stores will be in Lowell and Jackson, according to Stankowski.

Its products are cultivated and packaged at its facility in Evart, which is in the midst of an expansion.

In 2018, Michigan voters passed a ballot initiative legalizing adult-use recreational marijuana.

While the initiative set the framework for a new industry, it also gave the municipalities the option to opt-out of licensing commercial retail facilities within their boundaries.

Such entities had until last year to pass ordinances barring those businesses. Most townships and cities in Monroe County opted out, though discussions on the matter have been ongoing.

Monroe Township recently adopted an ordinance outlining the requirements for commercial marijuana facilities.

The City of Monroe also recently created a committee to discuss the matter as well.

The City of Petersburg adopted an ordinance last year in support of recreational marijuana businesses. At the time, Mayor James Holeman said the city did so with the intent to generate tax funds from the burgeoning industry.

Recreational marijuana “is coming down the road anyway,” Holeman told The Monroe News in November. “We need the revenue.”

For more information, visit lume.com.