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Some 900 entrepreneurs in New York are now waiting with a mixture of apprehension and confidence the day after the application period for the state’s Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary licenses closed on Monday.
New York’s Office of Cannabis Management hasn’t yet published regulations for any of the state’s nine general adult-use cannabis license categories. However, the state will issue up to 150 CAURD licenses, and recipients will open New York’s first legal adult-use dispensaries – if all goes according to plan.
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“I’m confident, but still, I’m on pins and needles,” said Mark Robinson, who applied for a CAURD license for a tourism-focused dispensary he and his three siblings want to open in Albany.
Individuals who qualify for a CAURD license must have been arrested in New York for a cannabis offense (or have a family member who was) before March 31, 2021, and have run a profitable business for at least two years. People who receive these licenses will have access to storefronts that are currently being secured and will be built out into dispensary spaces by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY).
The state also plans to grant 25 licenses to qualifying nonprofits, but those nonprofits won’t have access to the DASNY properties or New York’s $200 million social equity cannabis investment fund.
Robinson and his family members have an illustrious history of weed-related arrests and convictions, he said. Since dispensary tax revenue will go toward the surrounding community, Robinson hopes to get a location in Albany’s West Hill or South End neighborhood.
“Where I was overpoliced, that’s where I would like to have my dispensary, because I would like to put the revenue back in my community and see my community grow,” Robinson said. “There’s no Black wealth in my community.”
Mike Golden, who runs a cannabis lifestyle brand called The Higher Calling, submitted his CAURD application on Sunday and chose Central NY as his preferred location.
Golden applied with a partner, and the two filled out the application without the help of an attorney or other professionals – however, they did seek some advice from friends, Golden said. One of the most challenging aspects of the application process was getting all the necessary documents, he said.
Clerks at courthouses in Salina and in Rockland County were confused when Golden asked them to unseal convictions for unlawful possession of marijuana that he had previously asked the court to seal.
“Some of the ladies were looking at me weird; they probably hadn’t heard of CAURD,” Golden said with a laugh. “They were like, ‘What do you want from us? Now you want it back on your record?’”
Getting all the documents together also took some time for Jill Dragutsky, who applied for a CAURD license and chose Manhattan as her preferred area. Dragutsky has a felony marijuana conviction from 2008, her father has a cannabis conviction from the early 1990′s and was later an owner of a food distribution company.
“A lot of the documents, they require you to go back 20 years,” Dragutsky said. “It took a lot of digging to find what I needed.”
Dragutsky said she found the online application pretty confusing in certain places, but added that OCM staffers were very responsive when she emailed them questions.
The agency is now expected to begin sifting through the applications and possibly ask those who qualify for additional documentation. They will then score and rank applicants, but the timeline for this is unclear.
The state still expects to open its first CAURD location before the end of the year.
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