Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) – With lawsuits that halted New York State’s cannabis licensing program finally being settled by the state’s Cannabis Control Board, coupled with an application window for a number of cannabis applications ending this Monday, Dec. 15 at 5 PM EST, the slow rollout of marijuana in New York State is finally speeding back up again.
“The conditional adult-use retail dispensaries licenses (CAURD licensees) were released. So we’re already seeing that rapid turnover for people to get into their stores. Hopefully we’ll see at least four or five in Buffalo the next month or so open up,” said Aleece Burgio, cannabis law attorney with Colligan Law.
“Yes, with this application window ending on Monday, we’re going to see a lot more applications not just for retail, but across the board for distribution, processing, cultivation and micro businesses, so it’s very exciting.”
The application window has been open since October 4, 2023, and includes the cultivator, processor, distributor, retail dispensary and microbusiness applications.
The adult-use microbusiness license authorizes the cultivation, processing, distribution, retail sale and delivery of the licensee’s own cannabis products
After the application window closes, the Office will conduct a random order sequencing process of all applications submitted in this window to determine the order of application review. The random order sequencing process is further described in Question #10 on the Office’s Application Frequently Asked Questions.
A third brick and mortar recreational cannabis dispensary just recently opened their doors in Western New York last Wednesday.
Premier Earth Cannabis’s first day operating on Hertel Avenue was a success, according to co-founder Mark Schlueter. It is the second state-regulated recreational cannabis dispensary operating in Buffalo.
“The first day went great. The community was very receptive. We had a lot of people through the doors, we were able to keep the wait times down. We didn’t have to have people waiting in line out front, we have a very large waiting room. So it was cold that day and windy [that day], I was a little nervous, but everything worked out great. Very great.”
Photo credit Max Faery – WBEN
Mark Schlueter, Co-Founder of Premier Earth Cannabis on Hertel Ave on opening business and plans going forward
Mark Schlueter, Co-Founder of Premier Earth Cannabis on Hertel Ave on opening business and plans going forward
Schlueter also notes, “We would like to expand out to a couple more locations, but we’re going to focus on this [store] at this time and make sure that we’re doing a great job for the customers that we have.”
Burgio says the Cannabis Control Board could be approving 1,000 cannabis licenses in total when it’s all said and done this round.
“There’s two different types of licenses right now. There’s CAURD, which was temporarily held under an injunction that was just released about two weeks ago. There’s about 460 CAURD licenses that have already been awarded. Then this application window, which is for what we call the general application, has probably another 500 or so licenses, it’ll get awarded for retail as well. So I think we can expect to see about 1000.”
Burgio says we it wouldn’t be improbable to see about 50 or so recreational dispensaries open in the Western New York area once all of these licenses get approved. You can hear the full conversation in the player above.
H/T: www.audacy.com
