Local and much-loved, breakfast dive Chaos Café closed its doors recently.
The legendary stacks of pancakes and well-known steak fries will be replaced imminently with cannabis flower, pre-rolls, edibles, extracts, tinctures, and more. In April of 2022, Pecos Valley Production received approval for a Special-Use Permit from the city of Artesia for a dispensary at 501 First Street, formerly known as Chaos Cafe. The location meets the strict ordinances that a cannabis dispensary may not be placed in proximity to a school, neighborhood, or downtown arts and cultural district. A different kind of legalized and recreational comfort than breakfast food will become part of the business mosaic of the community.
The laws of recreational cannabis are new to the State of New Mexico. Communities are beginning to incorporate the day-to-day presence of sales. Roswell and Carlsbad both have a number of dispensaries and greenhouses as part of the business and community scene. Artesia will embark on a new era of cannabis sales with the opening of the Pecos Valley Production Artesia branch.
Pecos Valley Production opened in 2016 as a medical cannabis producer. Based out of Roswell, the company is owned by the Greathouse family. Brothers Jason, Clinton, and Kyle Greathouse along with their father, Gerry, completed and submitted the 890-page application in 2014 to the New Mexico Cannabis Control Division in Santa Fe to become medical cannabis growers. Their application to produce was one of about 14 selected at the time from a large pool of applicants.
Historically a family of dairy farmers, the Greathouse family left the animal husbandry side of the agricultural industry in favor of the horticultural side. Kyle explained that his father grew frustrated after 35 years with the increasing regulations on the dairy industry. With the help of his sons and the support of the other dairy farms, Gerry sold off the herd of Holstein cattle, milking equipment, and feed. The family was left with land, an old bottling plant, and water rights. The brothers put their heads together and asked what they would do next. The most logical answer, given the circumstances and their expertise in agriculture and business, was to try their hand at the newest frontier in agriculture: cannabis.
Cannabis is a cutting-edge industry, and the Greathouse family entered the field at the very beginning in New Mexico. Science drives the business behind Pecos Valley Production, and the family contributes valuable knowledge to the body of data emerging in the United States as a cannabis producing nation. The plants are measured, water usage metered, and temperatures in the greenhouses controlled. Kyle Greathouse explains, “There’s so much more to production than simply sticking seeds in the ground and letting them grow until they’re ready, and that’s what many folks don’t realize.” While the plants are easier to manage than a herd of dairy cattle, production continues to be a 365-day, non-stop operation.
Pecos Valley Production employs 80 people in Roswell alone and has a total of 200 employees around the state. The Greathouse family has learned the ropes of a rapidly evolving field in New Mexico in the past few years. Pecos Valley Productions began with 500 plants, the old dairy property, and water rights. Today, they have expanded to 20,000 plants, 27 hoop houses, a 15,000 and a 40,000 square foot facility, and 15 retail stores around New Mexico. The Artesia location will become the sixteenth location for Pecos Valley Production. For the Greathouse family, cannabis is all business. Pecos Valley Production is a professional organization which values product education, transparency, and availability. The goal of the business is to produce a “safe, tested, and natural product to whomever is looking to purchase legally,” says one of the founding brothers, Kyle.
Article written by Kaity Hirst and originally published in Focus on Artesia 2022 Fall edition.
