The New York Office of Cannabis Management recently announced that the 164th licensed recreational marijuana dispensary in the state opened its doors on Aug. 16. But there are still at least 300 more “justice-involved” conditional adult use retail dispensary (CAURD) permitholders trying to get open, noted Jayson Tantalo, one of those licenseholders.
Tantalo, who serves as vice president of operations for the New York Cannabis Retail Association, said he and his wife Britni were lucky enough to get final approval for their CAURD shop, Flower City Dispensary in Rochester, which is slated to open in September.
But, he said, only about 90% of the legal dispensaries opened thus far are among the 463 CAURD permits issued last year. The rest are still struggling either to find a compliant retail site that isn’t within 1,000 feet of another legal cannabis shop with “proximity protection,” or they’re having a hard time finding funding with which to build out their locations.
Those two hurdles have proven immense, Tantalo said, particularly the proximity protection, since there’s a lag in between when CAURDs request a legal notice from the OCM saying that their site can move forward and when that protection is actually granted.
That lag time, he said, often allows other adult-use licenseholders – often who got their permits this year and aren’t “justice-involved” – to find locations that are within 1,000 feet of the proposed CAURD site, obtain “proximity protection” from the OCM, and force the CAURD to start all over at square one, hunting for a legal retail space.
The OCM hosts an online map of which locations have been granted proximity protection, Tantalo said, but it’s only updated at best once a week. It would be far more helpful if the OCM used artificial intelligence or some other tech to get it updated on a daily basis, he said. That would save CAURD permitholders – who have all been trying to open for business since last year – a lot of time and energy in their ongoing search for dispensary sites.
“If a CAURD can’t get proximity protection, then they can’t move forward with their license,” Tantalo said. “My members are getting pissed because they’re seeing that pending proximity protection, even though they submitted it a month ago, it’s being issued to somebody who just got licensed a month ago.”
There’s also been ongoing confusion with the state fund that was originally intended to be managed by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York, with $200 million in low-interest loans for CAURD permitholders. Tantalo said he’s tried inquiring about how to access some of that funding himself for Flower City Dispensary, but hasn’t received any answers back. He said there’s not really been any communication from regulators on what’s going on with that pool of money, which was originally intended by Gov. Kathy Hochul as a resource for many of the CAURDs.
“Proximity protection, funding, if there’s no true transparency on the building blocks, then how can a CAURD ever become operational?” Tantalo asked.
That said, Tantalo noted there has been massive progress with the OCM over the past 12 months, and every time there’s a new dispensary opening announced, “it’s one of our members.”
He also said that since the staff shakeup at OCM and the replacement of former executive director Chris Alexander with Felicia Reid, that there’s been a lot more responsiveness from OCM on basic communications with licenseholders, because the office has begun taking help from other state departments.
“That’s progress,” Tantalo said.
