New York cannabis regulators approved just 31 new licenses Thursday as dueling fights over market access intensify. One lawsuit seeks to narrow licensing restrictions, while another, filed by current licensed operators, is pushing to halt review of thousands of pending applications.
Application processing has been on hold, but a state judge is expected to issue a revised injunction today that is expected to only apply to applications still under review. That action follows a Monday hearing that spent a significant amount of time defining which cannabis businesses should be considered “licensed.” The narrowed scope would allow hundreds more marijuana businesses that have won initial approval to begin operations.
This challenge stems from a May 2024 lawsuit brought by Organic Bloom and three other companies questioning the legality of the state’s social equity program. While the plaintiffs’ attorneys indicated Monday they don’t oppose already-licensed companies opening, the December preliminary injunction complicated the licensing process.
During Thursday’s CCB meeting, Patrick McKee, a senior official with the state’s Office of Cannabis Management addressed the impact of the legal challenges, saying: “The lower application count for this board meeting is partly due to the injunction and also coming off of the holiday season.”
On the other side, established operators are seeking their own restrictions on new entrants. At the Dec. 10 Cannabis Control Board meeting, regulators announced they wouldn’t begin reviewing roughly 5,000 applications submitted in December 2023 until later in 2025. The same day, 201 retail licensees and major suppliers petitioned for an indefinite halt to processing those applications pending market research.
Industry attorney Fatima Afia said the mounting legal issues help create a cycle of regulatory complications.
“The lawsuits at the very beginning of the rollout are sort of what actually precipitated some of the decisions that OCM then had to make in order to try to speed up the rollout. And then those decisions that were made in haste triggered additional lawsuits,” she told Green Market Report.
The petition to halt December application reviews argues that issuing up to 5,000 additional licenses, as anticipated by the CCB, “would have irreversible consequences for the nascent cannabis industry in New York.”
Prospective licensees strongly disagree.
“They say the December queue will flood the market and destroy the value of existing licenses,” Beck Hickey, a retail applicant, said. “I think we should flood the market and destroy the value of the licenses, because I’m more focused on the value of my business.”
Acting Executive Director Felicia Reid told the board Thursday that the injunction’s “is far narrower than initially presumed,” with updated guidance expected next week on which applications can move forward.
New York marijuana regulators approved 31 new cannabis licenses at the Cannabis Control Board’s first meeting of 2025. Read More
