Winfield CBD shop Bloomer Botanicals to close as hemp rules tighten
Owner Sharon Gordon says a Kansas law that took effect in July and a federal hemp change due Dec. 11 leave her too little to sell. The store plans to shut by Nov. 15.
By Jolene Marquardt
Bloomer Botanicals, the Winfield shop that has sold CBD and other hemp products on West Ninth Avenue since 2018, plans to close by Nov. 15. Owner Sharon Gordon says a state law that took effect this summer and a federal change coming next month will leave her with too little she can legally sell.
Gordon told the Cowley CourierTraveler that more than half of her inventory will become illegal once the new rules are in force, and that the store can’t survive on what is left. Steep discounts started this week, and the store fixtures are for sale. Two people will lose their jobs.
She saw this coming. Last December, Gordon told KMUW she would probably have to close within a year after Congress rewrote the federal definition of hemp. CBD alone, she said then, didn’t bring in enough customers to keep the doors open.
Two sets of rules
The Kansas piece came first. House Bill 2365, which Gov. Laura Kelly signed this spring, added several substances to the state’s Schedule I list, including THC, hexahydrocannabinol (HHC) and two compounds tied to kratom, according to the Kansas Legislative Research Department summary. The kratom ban, which KSHB reported makes possession a felony, took effect July 1. Gordon said the state law already wiped out much of what she carried. “Here in Kansas, our Legislature jumped into the fray early and banned everything,” she told the CourierTraveler.
The federal change is broader. A provision in the November 2025 law that ended the government shutdown redefined hemp by total THC content instead of only delta-9 THC, and it caps finished products at 0.4 milligrams of THC and similar cannabinoids per container, according to a Congressional Research Service legal sidebar published Oct. 28. That provision was set to start Nov. 12. A stopgap spending law Congress passed in September pushed most of it back to Dec. 11, but the part that removes products made with cannabinoids the plant can’t produce naturally, such as THC-O, still takes effect this Thursday.
Several bills in Congress would delay the new definition for two more years or repeal it, the CRS notes. None has passed.
The change doesn’t touch marijuana sold through state-licensed dispensaries, which Kansas doesn’t allow. Gordon said some of her customers have been stocking up, and others have told her they’ll drive to Oklahoma or Missouri, where medical marijuana is legal. Kansas is one of the few states with no legal medical or recreational cannabis program. The Kansas House passed a narrow medical bill in 2022, but the Senate never took it up, KMUW reported.
State Rep. Webster Roth, R-Winfield, told the CourierTraveler that at least one Senate committee has looked at medical marijuana but no bill has come out of it. He said he sees a place for it in Kansas if there are safeguards on how it’s dispensed and who qualifies, and that some hemp-derived products now on store shelves need clearer rules and enforcement.
Gordon opened the shop in June 2018, after the federal farm bill made hemp derivatives legal, partly because Cowley County residents were driving to Derby and Wichita for CBD products. She credits cannabinoids with helping her through cancer treatment. Before she closes, she is asking customers who have been helped by these products to write to their legislators.