Fallon Tribe Breaks Ground for New Dispensary

Members from the Fallon Tribal Development Corporation held a ground breaking ceremony for the Desert Embers marijuana dispensary on Friday, with plans to open in July. The dispensary will sell both recreational and medical marijuana products, and is located on land owned by the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribe.

Cody Downs, president of the Fallon Tribal Development Corporation (FTDC), said the dispensary will start life in a modular building at 192 Bottom Road at the intersection of Bottom and Reno Highway. Downs said the FTDC will construct a permanent building in the future after they have determined how much space they will need based on the traffic in the dispensary.

The Fallon tribe has been discussing opening a dispensary for several years, Downs said, but were hesitant to jump right in due to uncertainty regarding legal issues and concerns about increasing crime. Once they saw that dispensaries opened by other tribes and in other cities didn’t lead to skyrocketing crime rates, the FPST decided to move forward with their plans.

“After seeing other tribes undertake it successfully, we decided to go that route,” Downs said.

Five jobs are currently posted for Desert Embers, with plans to increase the staff as needed. They haven’t yet determined permanent hours of operation at this early stage and will make that decision after the dispensary has been open for a few weeks.

Downs said the FTDC is also considering developing the lot further with additional businesses behind the dispensary. Tule Enterprises LLC will be overseeing the operations of Desert Embers for the FTDC.