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New York’s Cannabis Control Board expanded marijuana regulators’ authority to issue provisional licenses, heard complaints about proximity protection and approved 101 new adult-use cannabis licenses during a Thursday morning meeting.
“We have dramatically increased the access of New Yorkers to safer, tested legal product, and that momentum is only continuing,” said Office of Cannabis Management Executive Director Chris Alexander.
CCB members unanimously approved a measure that gives the OCM authority to issue provisional licenses to retail applicants. Provisional licensees have up to one year to secure a location and receive a final license.
Before Thursday’s meeting, the CCB had to vote to approve provisional licenses. Now, OCM staffers can grant provisional licenses, but the CCB still must vote on final license approvals.
“We can move a little more quickly through reviewing of applications and issuing of provisional licenses, so that folks can go out, identify locations and move a little quicker,” Alexander said. “The hope is that this is an efficiency that becomes helpful to our …applicants.”
Businesses approved on Thursday were part of the third group of general license applicants who received approval, bringing the total number of fully licensed weed businesses to 324. Additionally, New York now has more than 100 dispensaries operating statewide, Alexander said.
Businesses approved for licensure Thursday include 35 retailers, 22 microbusinsses, 25 cultivators, 11 distributors and eight processors.
Alexander also said the OCM will resume considering and approving Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary licenses, a process that was initially paused due to a court injunction in August, and then held up until April 1 as part of the settlement in that lawsuit.
However, Alexander touched on a sore subject among some applicants when he encouraged people applying for retail licenses to utilize the OCM’s proximity map.
The agency’s issuing of “proximity protection” to prospective dispensaries applying for licensure has become a controversial issue among applicants.
According to OCM regulations, dispensaries may not operate within 1,000 feet of each other – or 2,000 feet in areas with low population density.
In order to make sure regulators don’t approve dispensaries within this buffer zone, they have been issuing “proximity protection” to some applicants as staffers review their application.
When a prospective licensee has proximity protection, other applicants are barred from applying with a location within the buffer zone.
The OCM reviews and approves applicants’ proposed locations before they review the full applications, and some have complained that regulators are providing proximity protection to stores that have been operating illegally.
During a public comment period, CAURD licensee Igor Kotlyar of Lepis Cannabis complained that after being held up for months due to a court injunction on the CAURD program, other applicants applied for licenses and received proximity protection before his and other CAURD businesses.
Those applicants, Kotlyar said, include stores that community members and law enforcement know to be operating unlicensed weed retail shops.
“People got on the list in front of us with illegal shops …documented illegal shops,” said Kotlyar, who added that he’s currently prevented from using his chosen location because regulators gave a nearby illegal store proximity protection. “You guys give them proximity protection, and we’re stuck with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bills.”
Other issues related to proximity protection are popping up, too, said Jennifer Miller, who represents residents at a Manhattan condominium complex. Miller said a shop near the complex was given proximity protection, but that the applicants no longer wish to open a store there, but don’t want to withdraw the application for fear of losing a deposit on the location.
As a result, other applicants are blocked from the area, Miller said.
With license approvals and dispensary openings picking up across New York, the Empire State’s legal weed market is beginning to see significant gains, OCM Policy Director John Kagia said during the meeting.
Last month, cannabis sales hit $32 million, the highest revenue figure since legalization, Kagia said. The first three months of 2024 was the highest-selling quarter yet for legal New York cannabis with $84 million in sales, he added.