RAVENA, N.Y. — New York officials launched legal recreational marijuana sales by promising many of the first retail licenses to people with past drug convictions, hoping to give people harmed by the war on drugs a chance to succeed before competitors crowded in.after sales started, only about two dozen state-sanctioned dispensaries have opened their doors. Legal challenges over the state's permitting process have left more than 400 provisional licensees in limbo.
A judge recently ruled that Marte's store and several others could open. But the fate of many other provisional license holders, like Carson Grant of New York City, was unclear. After months of delays in opening his store in Queens, he was debating whether to reapply for a license again in this general round.Reginald Fluellen, senior consultant with the Cannabis Social Equity Coalition, blamed the state for a botched rollout.
Curaleaf, which operates in multiple states, has already invested $50 million in New York, most of it on a recently expanded indoor growing facility south of Albany that now serves the medical market.
“We were given a fair chance to grow. We were asked to do that," he said. "We kept our promise. The state did not keep their promise.”