AUBURN — People were dumpster-diving at night outside the Wellness Connection of Maine’s medical marijuana growing operation.

They wouldn’t find anything of interest, Patricia Rosi said, but that wasn’t the point.

She believes it was the first growing facility in the country to reach out to police and ask for help.

“For us in our industry, it is not something we do,” Rosi, the company’s CEO, said Thursday morning at the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce’s monthly breakfast at Martindale Country Club. “We organized a stakeout in our facility.”

Auburn police hid their cruisers and watched security cameras inside the airport industrial park building with staff. When dumpster divers showed up, police jumped out and arrested them, she said.

That was in 2013, two years after Wellness Connection of Maine set up in the city.

“I think we’re still probably the only cannabis facility in the nation that had police . . . in the building for one night,” she said.

Rosi came armed with a list of challenges facing her business but made a point of saying that location hasn’t been one of them.

The city of Auburn and developer John Gendron have been helpful from the start, she said.

Wellness Connection of Maine’s grow operation expanded in the last year from 20,000 to 40,000 square feet and supplies Wellness’ four medical marijuana dispensaries in Brewer, Gardiner, Portland and, starting next week, Bath. It employs 40 people.

“We are definitely staffing up and ramping up,” she said.

They grow thousands of plants in 30 varieties and have 13,000 customers whom she referred to as registered members — people who have received a nurse or doctor’s certification that they have a condition that qualifies them to use medical marijuana.

That the industry is legal in Maine but not legal federally leads to a host of strained professional relationships.

“Everything you take for granted in all of your businesses doesn’t apply to us,” she said. “Try to get investors when you (don’t have) collateral and you’re illegal. Banking is a challenge, there’s no loans for us. Method of payment? Credit card, no. PayPal? No. We’ve tried Bitcoins. No. We can only do cash, which comes with another world of trouble and security risk for my employees.”

Trying to get insurance is a similar experience.

“They come, they go, they accept us, we do everything we can, we prove we’re a good company and then they change their mind,” Rosi said.

Maine is one of 38 states that allows medical or recreational marijuana use. In November, voters will decide in a referendum whether to legalize it for recreational use in Maine.

In 2014, Maine saw roughly $75 million in medical marijuana sales, Rosi said. With the addition of recreational use, she estimated it could grow to a $150 million to $300 million industry. 

“Whatever the referendum says, either yes or no, I think what is really important is that we all together, all the stakeholders, create very important, robust regulation framework to guarantee safety, quality and transparency for our communities and for everybody using it,” Rosi said.

Lewiston Schools Superintendent Bill Webster asked Rosi about marijuana’s impact on children’s development.

“Any time I deal with a marijuana issue in our schools, whether it be distribution, sale or use, invariably the students received it from a parent who is receiving medical marijuana,” Webster said.

Rosi said they recommend locking containers and safeguarding medicine, but, at some point, “What is the responsibility of the parent? How can we as an industry prevent parents from doing these things. It’s like alcohol, we’re doing the best we can.”

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