Dispensary Where Colorado's First Recreational Pot Sale Occurred Has Closed

The historic Denver dispensary in which America's first-ever recreational marijuana sale took place is no more.

On January 1, 2014, Sean Azzariti bought an eighth of Bubba Kush and some infused chocolate truffles from Toni Savage Fox, then-owner of 3D Cannabis Center at 4305 Brighton Boulevard. Surrounded by cameras and reporters, it was the first recreational marijuana sale in Colorado, which had just become the first state in the country to legalize and then implement recreational marijuana sales.

Ten years after that history-making event, the dispensary has been sold a couple of times over, and now the building sits vacant.
Later iterations of the dispensary, including the store's most recent owner, JARS Cannabis, kept "3D" in front of their names to honor the landmark. But the building was "going to fall apart," according to JARS managing partner Scott Rybicki, so the company transferred the dispensary license to a brand-new store at 1845 Federal Boulevard and closed the Brighton Boulevard location last fall.

"It was the weather, the roof," Rybicki says of that building. "My feeling is that the property is probably going to be developed in the future, like pretty much everything else on Brighton Boulevard."

Savage Fox had sold 3D Cannabis to Colorado dispensary chain Euflora in 2017. Euflora agreed to a buyout from JARS, a multi-state dispensary chain based in Michigan, in late 2022. According to Rybicki, he started looking for a new location shortly after.

The listed owner of 4305 Brighton Boulevard, Brighton Annex LLC, could not be reached for comment. According to the Denver Department of Excise & Licenses, there are currently no pending marijuana license applications for the address.

"We had to move. ...It imploded, and we didn't want to put more money into it," Rybicki says. "We wanted to see a newer area of the city. We weren't really in the west side of Denver, and it sort of organically happened."

The new, 3,800-square-foot dispensary sits on the corner of Federal Boulevard and West 19th Avenue, close to Mile High Stadium. It will be JARS's 41st location nationwide, and the company's sixth in Colorado.

"There haven't been many new buildings in Denver for cannabis," says JARS Colorado associate Ashley Chubin, pointing out that most new dispensaries open in former pot shops or refurbished buildings.
Chubin runs delivery operations and organizes the annual 4/20 festival in Denver, which has now been sponsored by JARS for two years. In just over two weeks, JARS's Mile High 420 Festival will attract tens of thousands of people to Civic Center Park, where artists Gucci Mane, Ohgeesy, Afroman, Big Boss Vette, Murs, Tommy Genesis and more will put on a free concert.

JARS has also remodeled the storefront above its dispensary on Denver's 16th Street Mall after purchasing the unit, an old 7-Eleven, during the pandemic. That JARS location now occupies two levels with a sidewalk entrance, instead of one in in the basement.

Shoppers at the new JARS dispensary, which opens on Friday, April 5, at 1845 Federal Boulevard, will be greeted by a personal attendant for a "one-on-one shopping experience," Chubin says, with product offerings like deli-style infused flower, or hash-covered buds sold by the gram.

On opening day, there will be a ribbon-cutting at 8:50 a.m., with the first fifty shoppers through the doors at 9 a.m. receiving a free JARS goodie bag; a 40 percent discount will be offered on everyting in the store until 9:45 a.m. After that, there will be food trucks and a DJ.

As for Azzariti's historical dispensary purchase from over ten years ago, he still has it. But it's not for sale.