The Social Equity Council is hoping the legislature fixes some issues they have with the cannabis legalization law, including a new cap on the number of equity joint ventures an existing marijuana producer or dispensary can form and giving cities and towns more leeway to decide how many retailers and micro-cultivators they can host.
The Social Equity Council met in February to discuss some of their legislative proposals, and SEC Chair Andrea Comer gave a rundown of the recommendations during the March 1 meeting.
Proposed changes to the legalization law include establishing a 14-month window for medical marijuana retailers and cultivators to establish social equity joint ventures in order to qualify for a reduced licensing fee.
Current law allows medical marijuana dispensaries and cultivators to apply for a hybrid license, but there’s a costly fee: growers need to pay $3 million and retailers need to pay $1 million.
If cultivators form two social equity joint ventures, and retailers form one social equity joint venture they can cut the hybrid license fees in half.
Current law, however, has no timeline in place for when the social equity ventures need to be up and running.
According to the state, an equity joint venture is a business entity consisting of a social equity candidate partnering with an existing licensed medical producer or dispensary facility.
Further, both expanding producers and hybrid dispensaries will be capped at two equity joint ventures in addition to their converted facility under the SEC’s proposed changes.
The SEC also recommends eliminating the cap on the number of retailers and micro-cultivators a municipality can host. Current language allows one of each for every 25,000 residents, but the change would give towns and cities the ability to determine their own limitations, Comer said.
Comer said the council recognizes there are other concerns with the cannabis bill that can’t be addressed at this time because lottery windows are already open and the market is launching. She said areas of concern center around potential market saturation of large and existing cannabis companies, including multistate operators, the advantage medical producers and dispensaries have in entering the recreational market, and the lack of restrictions on the number of license applications one business can submit to enter the lottery.
“We understand the challenges associated with this effort,” Comer said. “We are all personally and painfully aware that Black and brown communities have been marginalized from a policy perspective, and we know that shifting that paradigm requires systems change.”
“We know that this legislation, while promising in many ways, in other ways reinforces the foundations that we aim to deconstruct,” Comer said. “It also speaks to the critical importance of policymakers hearing from their constituents.
