There was no shortage of interest in Connecticut’s retail cannabis market as evidenced by the 15,605 applications for licenses the state received. Now comes the process of selecting the winners.
The state is issuing 12 retail cannabis licenses to start with half reserved for social equity applicants who must meet income and residency requirements. Two lotteries will be held for each license type — a social equity lottery and a general lottery — to determine who will get to operate in Connecticut’s adult-use cannabis industry.
The social equity lottery is meant to benefit those with lesser income levels and who have lived in “disproportionately affected areas,” or essentially census tracts that “have either a historical conviction rate for drug-related offenses greater than one-tenth, or an unemployment rate greater than ten percent.”
