The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner (OMC) received 1,269 applications from those interested in entering the recreational marijuana business, exceeding its projection of around 400 applications.
And the office only has 125 licenses available, sending the majority of applicants to a lottery process scheduled for Oct. 24, 2024, to determine who will receive a cultivation, manufacturing, testing or retail license. The lottery will be broadcast live on Facebook.
Just a few license categories fell short of having more applicants than there are licenses available, but Marijuana Commissioner Rob Coupe says the office is looking at an additional lottery to fill those slots next spring or summer.
During the initial application process, applicants were given the ability to select if they would like to be automatically entered into another lottery if they are not chosen during the cycle this month.
“If they were not selected in the lottery, because they selected to opt-in, they will be already eligible for the lottery next summer, and they will not have to pay an additional fee,” Coupe explained.
This will also be the case for slots that open up if OMC finds awarded applicants cannot fulfill their duties, background check problems arise, etc.
Due to the significant interest in the retail category, OMC will also conduct a separate lottery for all retail licenses and any other license categories not reviewed in time for the first lottery in October. This lottery phase is tentatively scheduled for late November or early December.
Open testing lab, social equity testing lab, micro manufacturing licenses for Sussex County and micro cultivation in New Castle County were the only four license categories to receive less or equal applicants than there are licenses available.
But Coupe says OMC is not concerned about the number of potential testing facilities in the state.
“We’re actually very pleased with the number of applicants we got in testing because we do have one testing lab that is in our conversion license process. So that lab has been providing for the medical marijuana program, so now they will be — through the conversion license process — they will be one lab. And then we’ve picked up two in the open testing sector — that’s three — and then two more in social equity sector is five labs. And that’s really, that’s really good,” Coupe explained. “I know there’s some states that have struggled to get labs set up. So we’re really, really happy having five, and we think they’ll be able to manage the workload.”
Coupe says the current application cycle raised over $4 million in fees, which does not include the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid by current medical dispensaries which applied for conversion licenses to enter the recreational market.
Although conversion licenses need to be granted by November of this year, by law, current medical dispensaries cannot start selling recreationally until some new retailers are also open for business.
“What our goal is, hopefully by April, is to have some of the newly selected adult use retail licensees– that we’ll have some of those ready to go online, and if we’re able to get a few of those ready, then the vision is that’s when we would open the market,” Coupe said.
The retail category was the largest recipient of applicants compared to manufacturing, cultivation and testing.
Open retailer received 519 applications with only 15 licenses available and social equity retailer received 325 applications with only 15 licenses available.
The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner received 1,269 applications from those interested in entering the recreational marijuana business, exceeding its projection of around 400 applications. Read More