A month-and-a-half since adult-use marijuana sales could legally begin, the Cannabis Control Commission has issued a total of seven provisional retail licenses to six different marijuana companies planning to open pot shops across the state. The prospective dispensaries still must pass final building and health inspections, as well as employee background checks, and the CCC still must license an independent testing lab before any business can proceed with recreational sales (commission officials said last Thursday that the first labs could be licensed at their next meeting on Aug. 23).

However, the provisional retail licenses that the agency has handed out — all to businesses that already have dispensaries in the state’s existing medical marijuana program — provide a preview for eager residents of where their first options will be located.