Rhode Island regulators have again delayed a lottery for medical cannabis business licenses.
The lottery, which was expected to take place next week, was postponed because of an ongoing administrative appeal by a rejected lottery applicant, the Providence Journal reported.
It is the second delay for the much-anticipated lottery, which was originally supposed to take place last spring.
According to the newspaper, the head of the state’s Office of Cannabis Regulation said the lottery won’t be scheduled “until that appeal has run its course.”
When the appeal will run its course isn’t clear, but it could become clearer “in a couple weeks,” regulatory chief Matthew Santacroce said.
The Department of Business Revenue (DBR), which oversees the Office of Cannabis Regulation, earlier this year selected 24 companies from 28 applications to participate in the lottery, the Journal reported.
The four companies that failed to make the cut were Enlite RI, Livity Compassion Center, The Edward O. Hawkins Center and Atlas Enterprises.
Atlas Enterprises filed the appeal that is holding up the lottery, according to a previous report by Providence TV station WPRI.
Regulators are still figuring out how the lottery will work, the Journal reported, because the DBR did not receive any bids from companies to oversee the process.
