California cannabis regulators approve more annual licenses

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The California Bureau of Cannabis Control on Friday announced the approval of a dozen annual marijuana business permits for 10 retail locations, one distributor and one event organizer.

The approvals came just days after California’s two other regulating agencies – the Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and the Department of Public Health (CDPH) – began handing out annual permits.

The BCC approved retail licenses for:

  • Creekside Wellness in Boulder Creek
  • Dank Depot (Cathedral City)
  • Dutchman’s Flat (San Francisco)
  • No Wait Meds (Cathedral City)
  • Horizon Nonprofit Collective (Sacramento)
  • Leef Industries (Palm Springs)
  • Atomic Budz (Cathedral City)
  • Monterey County Patients Group (Vallejo)
  • Skunkmasters (Port Hueneme)
  • Blue Mountain Collective (San Andreas)

Bud Technology (California City) received a distribution permit and High End Society (Los Angeles) an event license.

The applicants must now pay a final fee before their licenses are issued, the BCC said in a news release.

The BCC to date has received 1,053 applications for full annual cannabis business permits – including retailers, distributors, testing labs and microbusinesses – spokesman Alex Traverso wrote in an email to Marijuana Business Daily. That total stands in contrast to nearly 4,000 applications for temporary BCC licenses the agency has received to date.

By comparison, the CDFA has received 2,547 applications for annual cultivation licenses, while the CDPH has received 373 for manufacturing.

That’s a total of 3,973 commercial cannabis business licenses for the entire California market, should all applications be granted.

The start of the annual license period also marks the beginning of California’s track-and-trace program, which all annual licensees must use. Questions abound about how the system will work, according to industry insiders.