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New York regulators gave the OK for two more adult-use stores to open as lawmakers ponder some potential changes to the state’s cannabis law.
Community Board 8’s Street Life Committee greenlighted the approvals of Green Health and a store operated by Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) licensee Deanna Brooks, Crain’s New York Business reported.
The store locations are on the Upper East Side.
New York now has 65 adult-use and delivery providers operational, according to data from the state’s Office of Cannabis Management.
That number has more than doubled since the start of the year.
Recreational cannabis sales in New York began in December 2022.
Meanwhile, lawmakers who created the state’s 2021 legalization law – the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) – are weighing potential changes to the statute in an effort to jump-start retail sales.
New York’s adult-use program has struggled to build momentum as lawsuits, a dearth of funding for social equity licensees, municipal opt-outs and a shortage of retail properties have curtailed growth.
Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes earlier this week said the MRTA deserves to be revisited and now might be the time to improve it.
“When the MRTA was negotiated, it was under the former governor and there are some pieces of it, quite honestly, that have his footprint on it that are not necessarily fitting for 2024,” she told Spectrum News 1.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul recently called the state’s rollout of recreational cannabis retail a “disaster” but indicated wholesale changes to the MRTA are “not likely to happen.”
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