When Tom Szulist converted much of his cherry and garlic farming in Appleton to state-licensed pot growing in 2019, he was promised he would have a three-year head start before the deep-pocketed corporate pot companies that have dominated the cannabis industry in other states would be allowed to enter the New York market.
Before those corporate cannabis operations could come in, the state assured farmers and retailers, justice-involved individuals and state-sanctioned mom-and-pop shops would have time to establish themselves as viable businesses, giving them valuable time before they had to take on such formidable competition.
Now, the state is poised to break that promise, with new regulations that would allow out-of-state operators in the medical marijuana industry, such as MedMen, to add three adult-use dispensaries apiece by next year.
Not only that, the regulations would allow medical operators to do business under more favorable growing conditions than the state’s other growers, and be able to stock their shelves with their own product.
The change is all the more devastating to small pot operators by the state’s slow rollout of its legal cannabis dispensary program. Some farmers sank their life savings and mortgaged their homes to fund cannabis operations only to find the marketplace in which they were promised to sell their pot didn’t exist when crops were harvested – and would barely exist nearly a year later.
“We’re going into another season and it should be exciting because all of my customers are dying to pick up my products. But I couldn’t even share last year’s crop with them and now I’m starting another one,” Szulist said.
And it’s not just the growers that will be thrust onto an uneven playing field.
Retailers, many of whom are still trying to get their businesses off the ground or have yet to receive licenses, will find they have little or no first-to-market advantage, and are competing…
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