WESTERN COLUMBIA: A CBD craft store wants to take over the former Comedy Closet location in Western Columbia.
Veteran Botanical Group, a veteran-owned business, plans to manufacture and sell its own CBD oil, pens and cartridges, as well as CBD-infused products such as chocolate and lollipops. The company must remove an obstacle with the city’s zoning appeals board before it can move forward.

The building, located at 735 Reunion Street, near WECO Bottle and Biergarten, sits on a plot that is not intended for light manufacturing. Co-owner John Thorne, who hails from Columbia, said the business plans to have a kitchen, production and packaging area on site.
The zoning appeals board will consider an exception for the veteran botanical group at its Oct. 26 meeting.
The veteran botanical group focuses on promoting CBD products for health and wellness benefits, such as providing a natural alternative to medications for inflammation, Thorne said. Among his co-owners, also based in South Carolina, are fellow veterans who served with him on deployments in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cuba and Iraq.

“We have people who have been doing good things for the community for a long time and we want to be able to do that through this business as well,” Thorne said.
The manufacture and sale of CBD oil and other hemp products is legal in South Carolina. State and federal legislation only allows oil and CBD products with a concentration of THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, below 0.3%.
Companies focused on private hemp CBD have spread rapidly throughout South Carolina after the state legalized CBD in 2017. West Columbia already has several CBD stores, including some on Meeting Street.



