An unnerving cloud is forming over the heads of NYC weed dispensary owners. And it’s not from the flowers, vapes, or pre-rolls flying off shelves at record pace. No, the paranoia you might sense from your local (legal) plug is the result of first and second-hand exposure to a new interpretation of the state’s recreational cannabis regulations, which could have a broad (and expensive) impact on the majority of the city’s 150+ dispensaries.
The new haze around regulations circles back to the distancing guidelines given to dispensary owners by state regulators under the 2021 law that legalized recreational cannabis sales. The legislation stated shops were to be at least 500 feet away from schools, churches, and other dispensaries. However, regulators are now claiming to have mistakenly approved an alarming number of locations that were too close to schools, contending their initial measurements were from door-to-door, when they should have been from the edge of property lines. And now, more than half of the city’s dispensaries, both long-running and yet to launch, may need to find new homes. 89 of the 108 licenses potentially impacted by the redrawing of regulatory lines are located in the city and represent roughly two-thirds of NYC’s 155 cannabis businesses. More than 60 are already fully operational, another 30 may need to relocate before they’ve even opened their doors, and an additional 38 licenses are pending approval.
For their part, regulators seem to acknowledge the self-made nature of this regulatory “oopsy,” as they were the ones to sign off on the locations during the owners’ application period for the state’s licensing program (or the Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary Program). In a notice and summary of the “recent practice correction” published by The Office of Cannabis Management last week, dispensary owners were told they could remain in their current locations while governor Kathy Hochul and state reps sort out a legislative solution—but the state legislature is out of session until January 2026, and the OCM made no guarantees a law would be passed upon return. The OCM did claim to have established a $15 million relief fund for businesses impacted by the new guidelines, but limited coverage to no more than $250,000 per applicant, which could be used to cover some of the costs associated with finding and acquiring a new location.
For someone like Coss Marte, the owner of ConBud, a quarter of a million dollars barely covers the potential damage of having to move the business, considering his 10-year, $40,000-per-month lease on the corner unit with an in-house gym he operates on the Lower East Side. “I just feel like I was heading toward generational wealth and now I’m heading toward generational debt,” Marte told Gothamist, clearly rattled by the compounding crisis of his location being in question and needing to reapply for his license in October, unsure of whether he’ll need to register a new space in order for it be renewed.
It seems, for now, owners have to play the waiting game, hoping Governor Hochul will come through with “proposing and aggressively pursuing legislation” that would allow dispensaries to stay in their current spaces. But the OCM made sure to outline, in bold, it could make no promises.
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