An hour and a half before the doors opened at 9 a.m. Thursday, a line started forming outside the Oregrown medical marijuana dispensary in downtown Bend.

Owner Avid Hadar said he knew the first day most Oregonians could legally buy marijuana would be busy, but didn’t expect to see 400 customers by around 1 p.m. The line of customers spilled out on to the sidewalk in front of his Wall Street dispensary, eating hamburgers provided by Hadar as they waited for the opportunity to go inside and peruse his products.

“I knew we’d have a rush, but I thought it would be after lunch,” Hadar said, laughing. “But apparently in Bend, nobody has a job.”

As of Thursday, the majority of the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries had been authorized to sell marijuana to anyone 21 or older. Oregon voters approved making marijuana legal for all adults with the passage of Measure 91 in November 2014, and earlier this summer, the Legislature agreed to allow existing dispensaries to serve the general public while the Oregon Liquor Control Commission works to set up a retail system.

Dispensaries that began selling to the public Thursday will be permitted to continue doing so at least through the end of next year. For now, people who do not hold a medical marijuana card can buy only dried flowers, or buds, pre-rolled joints and immature plants; edibles, extracts and concentrates will not be available to the public through dispensaries until sometime next year.

Although The Bulletin does not generally use anonymous sources, because marijuana remains illegal under federal law, multiple customers contacted by the newspaper Thursday declined to give their full names, citing concerns about their employment or family.

Steve, a 53-year-old medical marijuana cardholder, scanned the menu at Oregon Euphorics, a small dispensary on Century Drive. A semiretired consultant who uses marijuana to help with digestive issues, Steve said he never thought he’d live to see the day that shopping for marijuana would be like shopping for almost any other product.

“It’s really a lot of fun, I feel like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ walking into these places,” Steve said.

Anne, 48, works for a pharmaceutical company she said takes a dim view of marijuana, but she was picking up four small marijuana plants at Tokyo Starfish, a dispensary on NW Arizona Avenue.

Anne said she’s not much of a marijuana smoker, but wanted to buy plants as birthday presents for her husband and a friend. She said she was impressed by the atmosphere at Tokyo Starfish.

“It’s awesome, I love that it seems so legitimate, and people can come in here and act like adults,” Anne said.

Gary Bracelin, one of the owners at Tokyo Starfish, said he’d seen a lot of new faces on Thursday, recalling a couple appearing to be in their 60s that had left his shop moments earlier with a glass pipe, a cannister of buds and a small plant.

“That’s really been cool, seeing people like that,” he said. “Obviously there’s an affluent, older customer, haven’t tried it in a few years, and want to celebrate.”

Mark Capp, owner of Oregon Euphorics, said he’d been having fun meeting with customers who may not have bought or used marijuana in years. He said users who recall having a choice of whatever their dealers happened to have or nothing at all seemed a little overwhelmed by the choices at his dispensary.

“They just got transported into the future,” Capp said.

Conor Bonacker, picked up a pre-rolled joint and a gram of buds at Oregon Euphorics. Bonacker, 27, said it’s hard for him to imagine how much of the stigma against marijuana use has evaporated since he was a teenager.

“To go from there to basically a convenience store, to see and smell and buy whatever weed I want … wow,” he said.

Up in Madras, Mike Boynton of Central Organics reported a festive atmosphere. He said he had two people out on the highway dancing, one dressed as a pot leaf and one as a joint, and their antics had helped lure in a sizable crowd.

Boynton said he’d seen several customers from out of state and from parts of Oregon where there are no dispensaries cleared to sell marijuana to the general public.

“It’s been fun. It’s been a blast,” Boynton said. “I’m really glad to be a part of this. We’re making history today.”

Jonathan Modie, a spokesman with the Oregon Health Authority, said there were few obvious problems on the first day dispensaries opened their doors to the public. The Oregon Health Authority oversees the state’s medical marijuana program.

Modie said OHA inspectors learned of a few dispensaries in Portland where required signs had not been posted, and a handful of dispensaries where customers were given free samples in violation of the law. Inspectors were following up on a report of a minor seen with an edible marijuana product at an event in Portland, Modie said.

For the most part, dispensary operators have been willing to follow the state’s rules, Modie said.

“They risk their registration, losing their registration, and I think a lot of these operators that put their life and soul into these businesses, they want to do the right thing and we want to work with them,” he said.

One inspector happened to be off duty and vacationing in Bend on Thursday. Inspector Astri Cooper dropped in to Tokyo Starfish to see how the first day of legal sales was going.

Cooper said she worked with the owners of Tokyo Starfish during the dispensary’s licensing, and wanted to wish them well on Thursday. She said the owners run “a tight ship,” and are fairly typical of dispensary owners statewide.

“Overall we have good people and good businesspeople, and I think that’s going to keep the industry strong,” Cooper said.

Brittany Hood, an owner of Garden Kings on Franklin Avenue in Bend, said it’s no mystery why dispensaries around the state were busy throughout the day.

“We all just want to smoke some herb, and we’re really excited to do it legally,” Hood said.

Hood said business had been strong at Garden Kings though the morning and early afternoon, and had only recently ebbed enough that her employees could duck out for lunch. She said supplies of some strains were running low, but would be replenished today, and that medical customers shouldn’t worry about recreational users buying up all the available product.

Bracelin described the excitement of Thursday in terms anyone from Central Oregon ought to understand.

“It’s like opening day at the mountain, right?” he said. “This is like opening day, with great powder.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0387,

shammers@bendbulletin.com