While the General Assembly made several modifications to the state’s recreational cannabis law during its recent session, Social Equity Council Executive Director Ginne-Rae Clay said she hopes more changes come up next year after the state assesses the first round of business lotteries in the coming months.
Clay said Social Equity Council members plan to go on a late summer or early fall retreat, after the first lottery has taken place, to discuss how the license application process has panned out so far and what changes they might recommend. Gov. Ned Lamont recently signed into law several changes recommended to the legislature by the SEC.
They’ll put together a “robust legislative agenda” during that time, Clay said. One item Clay plans to discuss with the council, and legislators, is a way to prevent municipalities from outright banning cannabis companies from within their boundaries.
“There’s many municipalities that are prohibiting everything with cannabis,” Clay said. “I think it’s a shame — you have an urban area where we know that drugs have greatly disproportionately impacted individuals who are living there currently, have lived there in the past and want opportunity in this market.”
According to municipality-reported data collected by the state Department of Consumer Protection, at least 54 cities and towns in Connecticut have enacted some sort of moratorium or ban on marijuana businesses.
Clay said regional participation and inclusion in the market will be a key part of the industry’s success. Even if a municipality doesn’t want retail stores, it should be open to other businesses like indoor grow operations or manufacturing facilities, she said.
“The urban centers have old factories, they have the building space to put these companies together, and they have the residents who this law is intended to either get into the game or help them build careers in an industry that at one time punished them,” Clay said. “I’m hoping that in the next legislative session we can come up with and propose something that really prevents municipalities from prohibiting growth opportunities and job opportunities.”
