ESPAÑOLA — Kelly Dawson faced a challenging and highly competitive environment after he decided to go into what was then a burgeoning marijuana industry three years ago.

“It was certainly an uphill battle,” said Dawson, who owns High Country Dispensary on Paseo de Oñate, one of the main thoroughfares in the small city of Española.

“But we’re kind of like the dream story of [Gov.] Michelle Lujan Grisham,” he said, who in 2021 signed the bill legalizing recreational marijuana in New Mexico.

“I was an attorney in Austin, [Texas], made my money there, brought it to small-town New Mexico, made my investments here, pay [gross receipts taxes], employ here,” he said, adding the dispensary is now the most profitable in Española.

But since June, Dawson and other area businesses have confronted a

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