Bremerton’s Annette Atkinson never dreamed she would own a pot shop.

“Yeah, no, this whole thing never crossed my mind,” Atkinson said. “But, I’m a business person. I’ve never had anything against marijuana and have always thought it’s probably safer than alcohol and thought it should be handled in a similar way. But, I never thought I’d open a weed store.”

On Oct. 10, though, Atkinson will do just that with a 4:20 p.m. ribbon cutting and grand opening of Highway 420, a recreational marijuana store located at 1110 Charleston Beach Rd. in Navy Yard City. Actual sales will get underway the following day.

While a pair of Port Orchard retail stores have already opened, Highway 420’s opening will give Bremerton residents their first chance to buy legal recreational marijuana so close to home. The origin of the popular term 420 is often obscured by a combination of myth and urban legend, but most historians trace it back to a group of marijuana smoking teenagers in San Rafael, Calif., who, in 1971, journeyed into the Point Reyes forest on April 20 to get high.

Atkinson hopes that some of the weed she sells on opening day will come from Nine Point Growth Industries, a licensed grower in Bremerton. She got her retail license from the state Sept. 30 and the turnaround time to get product from Nine Point to her shop will be tight.

“That process usually takes 10 to 12 days,” she said. “I needed it in 11, so I’m praying that we’ll have that product here.”

Under stringent state rules, the marijuana has to be taken down, dried and tested. After waiting for the results, the bud can get packaging and labels before the finished product goes into a 24-hour quarantine. Only then can it be sent to the retailer. While hopeful that she will be able to sell Bremerton grown weed at her new shop on opening day, Atkinson says she will definitely have product available from Cascade Crops in Shelton and some more product from Sequim and Gig Harbor.

When asked if she thinks she will sell out of marijuana shortly after opening on Oct. 11, Atkinson didn’t miss a beat.

“Gosh, I hope so,” she said.

One of the great ironies about Highway 420 is that Atkinson and most of her management team are not potheads.

“I have smoked a little bit recently to find out a little bit more about it,” she said. “I don’t have anything against it, I just prefer red wine.”

Atkinson’s sister, Cheryl Jester of Edmonds, works as the marketing manager and is not a smoker either, but is a big fan of some of the store’s beautiful glass.

“I would just like to put some flowers in it and use it as a vase at home,” she said.

Another non-smoker is Michelle Beardsley, one of Atkinson’s former bosses at the Bremerton Housing Authority for five years, who is the store’s operations manager.

Brian Rose, a neighbor of Atkinson’s, is Highway 420’s purchasing manager and resident expert when it comes to the product.

“He’s the only one that really knows anything about bud,” Atkinson said. “The rest of us ladies don’t smoke it. We’re just business-minded, type-A personalities. We needed a product tester.”

A big emphasis at the store will be on educating consumers about marijuana. A pair of flatscreen TVs will feature Weed TV and the Weed Channel and digital tablets will be available for customers to get more detailed information about various product strains, uses and cooking. Books and magazines, which under state law can’t be sold at the shop, will also be available for customers to peruse.

Atkinson said her favorite part of being a new business owner is that no day is ever the same.

“There’s no routine day,” she said. “It’s always something different. I don’t like routines.”

The biggest challenge to getting Highway 420 off the ground has been the changing rules and shifting landscape of legal retail marijuana sales.

“The Liquor Control Board started with one idea and as things moved forward, those ideas changed because they were writing them as they went along,” she said. “So, that was a challenge and frustrating. But, the two men I worked with from the Liquor Control Board were phenomenal and bent over backwards to help me every step of the way. Hopefully, they will be here for the grand opening.”

Atkinson has also reached out to the Bremerton Chamber of Commerce and said the reaction she got from them was amazing. She also reached out to all of the store’s neighbors and has gotten a positive reception. In addition, she has spoken with the sheriff’s office, the state patrol and Bremerton police and offered the use of her store’s parking lot to all of them at any time, day or night.

“(Bremerton Mayor Patty Lent) was also very welcoming and apologized that she was going to be out of town for our grand opening,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson actually bought her store and property, a former gas station and mini-mart, from the City of Bremerton which owned the property for about 10 years as part of a major overhaul project of State Route 304. The former gas station site still has some contamination under the building and Atkinson is working with an insurance company and the Department of Ecology to clean it all up, which will hopefully be done in the next two or three years.

Even though Highway 420 isn’t open for business yet, a lot of curious people are already stopping by.

“We do have this on a fairly regular basis, people stopping by and asking questions,” Atkinson said. “You can’t beat our view. People stop by every day in the parking lot to take pictures of the aircraft carriers. It is just a little bit ironic.”

After the grand-opening weekend, the store will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays and from 10 a.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.