BUFFALO, N.Y. — As of Thursday night, the state's Cannabis Control Board was supposed to talk about a settlement agreement at its Friday morning meeting. The resolution on the agenda concerned two lawsuits filed by groups over the state's CAURD program.
But the settlement was pulled from the meeting's agenda.
In March, the Coalition for Access to Regulated and Safe Cannabis, representing several licensed medical cannabis providers, sued the state claiming state regulators exceeded their legal authority when they opened the initial cannabis licensing application pool last year.
Then in August, a group of veterans also sued the state claiming the state's CAURD program, which lets people apply for licenses to open marijuana stores, discriminates against people who don't have a previous marijuana conviction. That was one of the conditions you had to meet to be one of the first people to get a license.
The lawsuits are delaying people from opening new stores.
As of Thursday night, a resolution to approve a settlement for both lawsuits was on the Cannabis Control Board meeting's agenda. At some point before the meeting, it was removed.
"The settlement could be a very big deal for any of the conditional adult-use retail dispensaries. A settlement would mean that the temporary restraining order is lifted, and now we can continue on with the conditional adult-use retail dispensaries. It's unclear if that means everybody or if there's a limitation to it," said attorney Aleece Burgio.
Aleece Burgio is an attorney specializing in cannabis business law. She says the lawsuits are leaving people applying for CAURD licenses in limbo.
"All these conditional adult-use retail dispensaries actually had to reapply in the general, and so they all were doing that today, right, they all had that deadline, 4 today, and I think, we're hoping that they had a little bit of announcement there that they would get their license back, but now everybody has just reapplied and are back in the general, so we'll see what happens there," said Aleece Burgio.
2 On Your Side reached out to the Office of Cannabis Management Friday afternoon and asked why the resolution was removed and if there's any information the state can share with us. A spokesperson sent us a statement from the Executive Director saying, "We continue to work diligently to resolve the pending litigation and ensure continued development of the most equitable cannabis market in the country. We are hopeful that we will have more to share soon."
We also contacted the New York State Attorney General's Office, and didn't get a response by our deadline. So, we don't know anything about the settlement yet, except that the state's still working on resolving the lawsuit.