NY weighs regulations for pot licenses

Agency could OK rules Thursday afternoon

New York’s Office of Cannabis Management meets this afternoon (March 10) to discuss and, presumably, adopt regulations the agency released March 9 that could see retail marijuana dispensaries opening before the end of the calendar year.

The proposed rules place ‘justice-involved’ individuals at the head of the line for winning the right to open a storefront dispensary – a priority in the 2021 law paving the way for recreational marijuana sales in New York State. According to the agency, the ‘Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act’ (MRTA) “incentivizes participation in the new industry for individuals disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition, automatically expunges an individual’s past marijuana convictions, and invests 40% of the adult-use cannabis tax revenue toward rebuilding communities harmed by the War on Drugs.”

As a result of that directive, the newly-issued draft regulations would require a person seeking a dispensary license to show proof of conviction for a pot-related offense in New York State prior to March 31, 2021, have a parent, guardian, child, spouse, or dependent convicted prior to March 31, 2021, or be a dependent of a person who had a pot-related conviction prior to that same date.

A qualifying applicant must also hold or have held for two years or more a minimum of a 10 percent ownership in a business that ran a profit for at least two of its years of operation.

The draft regulations would find the agency evaluating applicants based on criteria including whether the justice-involved individual had as his or her primary residence a home in an area with “historically high rates of arrest, conviction, or incarceration” for marijuana-related offenses, lived in an area with historically low median income, or lived in public housing.

The Office of Cannabis Management says the agency will “actively promote applicants from communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition, and promote racial, ethnic, and gender diversity when issuing licenses for adult-use cannabis related activities.”

In her January 2022 State of the State address, Governor Kathy Hochul called for a $200 million fund to support social equity applicants seeking recreational dispensary licenses by assisting with leases, business plans, and other bottom-line requirements. That proposal is among the dozens on the table in on-going negotiations for a new state spending plan, due April 1.

The draft regulations set no cap on the number of dispensary licenses the OCM may approve, although the document reserves the right to “create regional geographic zones for the scoring of applicants.”

Look for an update on this story in the March 17 edition of The Freeman’s Journal / Hometown Oneonta.