NY cannabis industry stakeholders call for accountability, reckoning after latest marketplace setback

This post was originally published on this site.

Join NY Cannabis Insider for our next full-day conference on Sept. 21 at the Pearl Street Grill & Brewery in Buffalo. Tickets will sell out.

Ulster County Supreme Court Judge Kevin Bryant said Monday that he will not exempt any conditional retail cannabis licensees from his injunction issued on Aug. 18 because the Office of Cannabis Management failed to comply with his recent order.

As a result, the more than 400 Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary licensees who haven’t yet opened their stores are in limbo. Many are barely holding on – waiting for the judge’s go-ahead to begin recouping sunken investments totaling in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

NY Cannabis Insider broke the news of the court order on LinkedIn on Tuesday. Several industry stakeholders, including CEOs, licensees, and attorneys weighed in on the most recent development, and here are some of the top-rated comments from that discussion, edited slightly for grammar.

Ruben Lindo, Founder, Blak Mar Farms, LLC; CEO, Phoenix Nutraceutical, Inc.

“It is time to place the blame where it belongs. The OCM has displayed incompetence yet again. I will continue to ask everyone at what point does harm reduction become the harm? This almost seems like incompetence is acceptable.”

Colin Decker, Owner/founder of 7 SEAZ; Owner, Sensei Growth Consulting.

“Once again a shameful performance by the OCM. There needs to be a full change of staff at the CCB and OCM for continuing to allow those they incentivized to invest into this industry to further be harmed. Enough is enough of this bull**** already.”

Paula Collins, Attorney, Law Office of Paula Collins; Co-founder, NY Consortium of Cannabis Accountants.

“Wow. Just…wow.”

Jeffrey Schultz, Partner, Foley Hoag.

“OCM should have explained to the judge how the process works. I posted recently that it wasn’t clear if anyone met the exemption worded in the original order, and I took some heat for that. But that’s exactly what happened. Intentional or not. NOBODY met the requirements in the Order because anyone who met the requirements is already open.

“Had OCM explained that there is a list of CAURDs who submitted post selection applications that are under various stages of review, and that they needed a limited stay from the injunction to (1) finish their review of those PSAs and (2) conduct final inspections of those who’ve submitted complete and satisfactory PSAs to actually determine who ‘met all requirements for licensing,’ then perhaps the court would have granted it. Because that is how they would have arrived upon a list of CAURDs who have ‘met all requirements for licensing.’ Instead, they provided a list of CAURDs who submitted their PSAs without providing critically important context … plus an affidavit regarding the general status of certain of the CAURDs listed that was not requested by the court, further complicating matters and confusing anyone who is not intimately familiar with the process here (which is nearly everybody).”

Tony Gallo, Managing Partner, Sapphire Risk Advisory Group.

“Very sad to hear. I feel for those CAURD applicants.”

Wendy Francis, President, Discovering Cannabis,

“Enough is enough – time to get people in the OCM who know what they are doing.”

Nathan Zeke, CEO and co-founder, iBliss.

“Man, I thought the head of the Bureau of Cannabis Control in California was a joke. Who the heck is running OCM? What a total disaster. Sounds like par for the course in cannabis, unfortunately.”

Christian Mollica, Chief Revenue Officer, AUCP & AUCC licensee Naturae

“The level of incompetence on display here is truly astounding. I won’t hold my breath for any resignations though.

“We’ve got dozens of CAURDs sitting idle ready to go but unable to open, hundreds of cultivators about to pull literal tons of material out of the ground, and a slew of processors with extraction techs, manufacturing labor, and sales, marketing and distribution personnel … and only 23 stores to sell all those products into.”

Jon De Olden, VP of Sales, Seneca Farms

“This is all because of one person. One person holding this up because they don’t think it’s fair. Now farmers and people that did what they were supposed to are being hurt. How about we just crowdfund for this dude, give him $2 million and let the stores open up. It’s ridiculous we are allowing this one person or group to hold it all up for everyone. Legal or not, it’s unethical.”

→ Christian Mollica, CRO, Naturae

“It’s the OCM’s fault, first and foremost. They shoehorned in their political agenda and took liberties with the conditional program that the MRTA did not grant them authority to take. This thing was riddled with legitimate legal issues from day one. They left the door wide open for exactly this scenario to occur.”

→ JA, Veterans’ Holdings

“Seriously? This is all because OCM was incapable of carrying out their duty as a regulatory agency. This is all because OCM was incompetent and chose to ignore the law as written for either their own self interest or bought and paid for special interests. This is all because we allowed a bureaucracy to run away with unfettered power and no legislative oversight – what this is NOT is the result of one person not getting what they want. This is about a state agency’s ability to violate the state constitution. Let’s not forget exactly what this actually is.”