Cannabis company showcases new grow facility in San Manuel

SAN MANUEL, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) - A small mining town in Southern Arizona is now looking to the green rush. San Manuel, just north of Tucson, is home to a growing cannabis industry and many new jobs.

The town that copper fueled is now uplifted by weed, with cannabis company The Flower Shop opening The Flower Mine. The building their grow facility is in was once a part of the company that mined copper.

The facility is a seed-to-sale operation, with a goal to push out 800 lbs of cannabis a week, a balance of quantity and quality for Director of Cultivation Patrick Corrigan. “If it doesn’t have the quality and if it doesn’t meet our own criteria points then there is no way anyone else is going to like it either,” said Corrigan.

The facility is the fountain of this desert of employment opportunities. “I’ve watched a lot of people move away to look for a new job,” said Flower Mine employee Nathaniel Lopez. Lopez used to drive 100 miles a day before he got this job. “Its a lot better, I have a five minute drive to work,” said Lopez.

The facility uses 15,000 gallons of groundwater a day, 75% of which the company said is reusable, a precious resource in this desert that Greta Brandt, the company’s president, admits was a big reason why they came to San Manuel. “We want to be able to scale that we needed without being constricted by water usage,” said Brandt.

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