First New York Cannabis Retail Licenses to Go Out in Two Weeks
The first conditional adult use cannabis retail licensee announcement is expected in about two weeks, a senior regulator said on Thursday.
Axel Bernabe, the chief of staff and senior policy director for the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), spoke at the Business of Cannabis conference hosted at the Academy of Medicine on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Thursday.
Bernabe gave an update to the timeline of regulators’ rollout of adult use cannabis. The next meeting of the Cannabis Control Board, which sits within OCM, will take place on November 21, he said. That meeting has not been publicly announced.
Bernabe said that regulators will be in a “position” to recommend for approval the first Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) licensees. These licensees, who will be prioritized before other types of applicants, must be “justice involved,” which means they either have a cannabis conviction or a family member who had one, and must have some business experience.
“The moment that that happens, then we will be assisting them as much as possible,” Bernabe said.
On a separate panel, Tremaine Wright, chair of the CCB, reiterated that “yes, we are on target,” for open cannabis shops before the close of 2022. “And, we are not opening a store, but there will be stores open before the end of the year.”