Business
Upstate New York Officials Clash Over New Cannabis Regulations
Officials in Niagara Falls are in disagreement.
City and county officials in upstate New York are at odds over the implementation of rules governing the sale and cultivation of marijuana in the community.
The dispute is between the Niagara Falls City Council and members of the Niagara County Planning Board, and it centers around how the community will enforce the sale of recreational marijuana, which was legalized by the state of New York in 2021.
The Niagara Gazette reports: “The Niagara County Planning Board unanimously decided to disapprove a zoning text amendment the Niagara Falls City Council approved a month ago, which allows for the cultivation, production and sale of recreational cannabis within the city. Despite this decision, the members knew their actions would have little effect on the city’s implementation. The county board members’ objections ranged from not being specific on locations to the city seeing little financial benefit from having these businesses operate in the Falls.”
Under the ordinance that was approved by the Niagara Falls City Council last month, “cannabis dispensaries engaging in sales only can operate between 8 a.m. and 2 a.m., those that allow on-site consumption may operate from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m., and may not operate more than 70 hours a week,” and retail “dispensaries may not be located within 500 feet of a community facility while consumption dispensaries may not be within 200 feet of a house of worship, 500 feet of a school or ‘community facility,’ and 1,000 feet of similar operations,” according to the Niagara Gazette.
New York’s Office of Cannabis Management issued 36 recreational marijuana dispensary licenses to various businesses and nonprofits in the state in November, but so far, only two retailers––both located in Manhattan––have opened to customers.
The Office of Cannabis Management says that cities, towns, and villages could have opted out of allowing adult-use cannabis retail dispensaries or on-site consumption licenses from operating within their jurisdictions, but those municipalities needed to “pass a local law by December 31, 2021 or nine months after the effective date of the legislation.”
The agency explains: “If a municipality does not opt-out by December 31, 2021, the municipality will be unable to opt-out at a future date. However, a municipality may opt back in, to allow either, or both, adult-use retail dispensary or on-site consumption license types by repealing the local law which established the prohibition. All local laws passed by municipalities opting out of allowing adult-use retail dispensaries or on-site consumption licenses are subject to a permissive referendum as outlined in section twenty-four of the Municipal Home Rule Law. This creates a process allowing voters of the municipality to petition the outcome of a local law, which if successful, will trigger the question of whether or not to approve the local law, to be placed on the ballot at the next general election of state or local government officials for the municipality.”
No municipality can “opt-out of adult-use legalization,” according to the Office of Cannabis Management.
According to the Niagara Gazette, Kevin Forma, the city planning director of Niagara Falls, “said the directions that all municipalities received from the state are similar to liquor ordinances and the requirements for having a bar,” and that the “state was also restrictive in what the city can do for allowing and disallowing uses.”
“The state is telling us that we cannot restrict this,” Forma said during the planner’s meeting on Monday, as quoted by the Gazette. “We’re developing this to the best of our ability, managing this in conjunction with the state rules and regulations.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/upstate-new-york-officials-clash-over-new-cannabis-regulations/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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