New York won’t process 2023 adult-use marijuana applications until 2025

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New York regulators won’t finish reviewing applications for adult-use marijuana business licenses submitted late last year until 2025.

That’s the timeline set by Felicia Reid, the acting director of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), during an interview last week with Spectrum News 1.

There are still 600 applicants from the so-called November queue of retail and microbusiness hopefuls that remain to be evaluated.

Reviews will continue until “early next year,” Reid told Spectrum.

Applicants from the December queue, which consists of cultivation permits, will wait even longer: Those applications will be reviewed “on a rolling basis” after the November queue is completed Reid told the New York City-based news outlet.

The latest estimate contradicts an earlier, more hopeful promise from OCM Chief Operating Officer Patrick McKeage, who told the state Cannabis Control Board earlier this month his agency would complete its review of last year’s queues by the end of 2024.

And it’s all well behind the initial promise to applicants that the state would decide which applicants would receive licenses “by early 2024.”

Reid took over management of New York’s marijuana industry in June, after initial OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander resigned on the heels of criticism from Gov. Kathy Hochul that preceded a scathing audit released in May.

One problem that audit identified was understaffing: The OCM had 65 unfilled positions, including at least 13 vacancies on its licensing review team.

But nearly four months after the audit’s May 8 release and two months into Reid’s tenure, that situation hasn’t changed.

The OCM still has 65 vacancies and remains “woefully understaffed,” Reid told Spectrum News 1,