NYS cracks down on illegal cannabis as legal market grows
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)--- It has been four years since the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, known as MRTA, was signed into law.
According to the Office of Cannabis Management, a lot has changed since those early days.
"In terms of the industry, we’ve had an incredible 2024 year where we did, I think, over $900 million in adult-use retail sales putting the total sales over $1 billion. So, just as a testament to what the industry is doing— our rate of licensure, our creativity, and drive of our licensees has been incredible," said Felicia Reid, OCM's Acting Executive Director.
As of Friday, New York State has 335 legal stores. According to Reid, a total of 1,614 licenses have been issued to date.
Over the years, the state agency has faced some criticism for not getting licenses out fast enough. Political Correspondent Jamie DeLine asked if that is still the case.
"I’m really glad to report that we have two queues November 2023 and the December 2023 queues. We are at the very end— I think we only have about 50 licenses left in the November queue and we have only been getting in the December queue as license types warrant," said Reid.
She went on to say the customer service center and licensing team has been expanded.
Lauren Rudick, the managing principal of Rudick Law Group said there’s some room for licensing to improve.
"We still have a very big issue with respect to those individuals who applied in the December queue, just one month later," said Rudick. "Anyone who applied in that December queue did not apply with a location. They applied for what’s called a provisional license and there has been efforts by the existing operators and those in the November queue to prevent the Office of Cannabis Management from issuing more licenses as a way to protect their market share."
Another challenge the state has faced is cracking down on illegal stores.
“We’ve closed around 350 stores in the last several months," said Reid. "Which is really encouraging to see, because one of the most helpful things to the market is that they don’t have to compete with unlicensed operators who are putting things into our consumer supply chain such as untested, unverified…”
The Governor’s Executive budget proposal allocates $73.1 million dollars to the Office of Cannabis Management— $5 million of which would be dedicated to hiring more staff to close illegal shops.
The final state budget is due on Tuesday.