DENVER – A day that many Denver, Colorado, business owners never saw coming has arrived: a license to sell recreational marijuana.

“Applause broke out and cameras whirred when the first license was issued from the city's Department of Excise and Licenses. The city awarded 14 licenses for retail shops, 17 licenses for pot growers and three licenses for makers of cannabis-infused products such as pot brownies,” writes The Associated Press.

The licensed sellers underwent a “grueling process” to receive their permit, which the AP says included a state and local licensing process with public hearings and more than a dozen fire and building inspections for each shop.

While recreational marijuana for adults age 21 and over has been legal in Colorado for more than a year, retail sales won’t begin until 8 am on January 2, 2014. A similar law was passed in Washington state, and stores selling the drug plan to open this coming spring, notes the AP.

In Denver, the newly licensed shops were handed red posters last week along with stacks of fliers that provide instructions for customers on their rights/limits: no consumption in public, driving stoned or taking the drug out of state.

"These are big businesses that have been operating in good standing in our city for a long time," Amber Miller, spokeswoman for Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, told the AP.

Colorado has approved 348 marijuana business licenses and more than 100 of those are still pending in Denver.