The vision is terrifying.
Along with luxurious corporate retreat facilities, The Blast reports the facility will also offer clients hands-on marijuana growing lessons taught by Tyson — helping budding growers to perfect their craft in the Tyson Cultivation School.
Promotion for the centre has already begun with Tyson featured turning turf on the building site inside California City, a town with a population of 15,000, two hours drive north of Los Angeles.
The facility has the full support of California City mayor Jennifer Wood, who was also pictured with Tyson at the announcement.
The mammoth compound is reportedly planning on using half of its total site (20-acres) to cultivating marijuana in controlled climate conditions that co-founder Hickman says is "primed" to deliver high quality strains of THC and CBD.
"(The facility) "will allow master growers to have maximum control of their environment," Hickman told The Blast.
The facility will also feature:
- Luxurious camping and cabin facilities
- Amphitheatre for presentations
- A Hydro-feed plant and supply store
- An extraction facility
- An edible factory; and
- A garden with water feature
The company formed to operate the facility is titled Tyson Holistics.
The company has also trademarked the term Iron Mike Genetics for use by Tyson Ranch.
An opening date for the centre is yet to be announced.
Tyson, who has been notoriously unwise with his money in the past — declaring bankruptcy in 2003 — might finally be onto a boom investment.
The recreational marijuana industry in California is set to become a US$7 billion monster by 2020, following its legalisation.
The historic day for California was celebrated with a holiday-like atmosphere on New Year's Day.
It wasn't exactly reefer madness Monday as California launched the first legal retail sales of marijuana, but those who could find the drug celebrated the historic day, lining up early for ribbon cuttings, freebies and offerings ranging from joints to gummy bears to weed with names like Red Dragon.
Sales were brisk in the shops lucky to score one of the roughly 100 state licenses issued so far, but customers in some of the state's largest cities were out of luck. Los Angeles and San Francisco hadn't authorised shops in time to get state licenses and other cities, such as Riverside and Fresno, blocked sales altogether.
Licensed shops are concentrated in San Diego, Santa Cruz, the San Francisco Bay Area and the Palm Springs area.
California voters in 2016 made it legal for adults 21 and older to grow, possess and use limited quantities of marijuana, but it wasn't legal to sell it for recreational purposes until Tuesday (AEDT).
The nation's most populous state now joins a growing list of states, and the nation's capital, where so-called recreational marijuana is permitted even though the federal government continues to classify pot as a controlled substance, like heroin and LSD.
The Bureau of Cannabis Control was not aware of any problems or complaints about the first day of sales, but it didn't have inspectors in the field, spokesman Alex Traverso said.
Employees at the bureau on the holiday continued to process 1,400 pending license applications for retail sales, distribution and testing facilities. Traverso said they expect a flood of applications from LA and San Francisco after those are approved locally.
Because Los Angeles is the biggest market in the state, some of those shops will be approved more quickly than others waiting in line, he said.
-with AP.
