State officials say after weeks of uncertainty, hundreds of New York cannabis entrepreneurs will likely soon be able to move forward with plans to open dispensaries across the state.
New York’s Cannabis Control Board voted Monday to accept a settlement in two lawsuits challenging the legality of the licensing program that launched the state’s recreational cannabis industry. One of those lawsuits resulted in an injunction against the program in August, forcing the slow legal roll-out to screech to a halt.
The case that led to the injunction was brought by four service-disabled veterans who objected to the state’s Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary program, a social equity initiative that reserved the state’s first licenses for people with past marijuana convictions and their family members. The plaintiffs argued that, under New York’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, other groups, including veterans, should also have been prioritized.
The state is also settling with a group of large cannabis companies that already have medical licenses in the state and are waiting on their chance to enter the recreational market. A coalition of those companies filed a lawsuit in March calling the conditional license program unconstitutional, arguing state policymakers overstepped their authority when they created it.
The state has not released the details of the settlement, which needs to be approved in court before the injunction can be lifted. Spokespeople for the plaintiffs in the lawsuits did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When the injunction was issued in August, the state had given out 463 conditional dispensary licenses, but only a handful of shops had actually opened. Some license holders said they had already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars, or in some cases upward of $1 million, in securing real estate and building out their shops when the program was put on hold. Many sought exemptions to the injunction, but only five were…
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