AS EIGHT BILLS in this legislative session seek to increase the number of dispensaries or cannabis establishments that any one individual or organization can own, the cannabis industry remains divided on whether the Legislature should maintain the current cap of three. 

The state set the license cap in 2017 as a measure to keep large companies from monopolizing the cannabis industry and to protect small cannabis business owners – particularly those who come from communities harmed most by the war on drugs. 

Now, some cannabis operators are saying that the cap restricts their ability to run their businesses. Some cannabis business owners have argued that the Legislature needs to increase the license cap to allow struggling business owners to attract desperately needed capital from large multistate operators and provide an opportunity for them to sell their companies. 

The bills currently pending all seek to raise the license cap from three to either six or nine. One bill seeks to allow companies that have already reached a three-license limit to increase the amount of ownership stake they can have in four additional social equity businesses. 

On Wednesday, at the Legislature’s first cannabis committee hearing of the session, cannabis business owners and leaders spoke in favor of the bills to increase the cap. 

Payton Shubrick, the owner of 6 Bricks dispensary in Springfield, argued in favor of increasing the cap. She said that her business is family-owned and has faced headwinds with the falling price of marijuana since she opened the dispensary. Increasing the license cap will mean that larger companies will have more opportunities to buy up or invest in companies like hers, she testified. 

“At this point in time, I’m sitting on an asset that’s losing value over time with oversaturation and oversupply creating a dynamic where I can’t create a successful exit,” said Shubrick. 

The owner of Apex Noire – the first black-owned dispensary to open in Boston – and a former member of the Boston city council, Tito Jackson, also spoke in support of changing the license cap. 

“Increasing the license cap should be seen as a tool – one that business owners can use if they are able to,” said Jackson. “It does not mean that … everyone has to sell. However, not giving those individuals the options to do so is problematic.” 

Other cannabis business owners testified in opposition.  

“I can guarantee you that raising the cap will do the exact opposite of what other people have mentioned here,” said Ruben Seyde, the owner of Delivered, Inc., a cannabis delivery company. “It is not going to help [social equity businesses like mine]. It is only going to put me in a worse position than the one I am in right now. I am already struggling in this market. If these entities are able to double their resources by partnering up with [multistate operators] and other larger entities, I have no future. I have no viable road from my current to take and to still reach some level of profitability.” 

Ahead of the legislative hearing, nearly 60 business leaders and advocates in the cannabis industry signed a letter urging legislators to continue to cap the number of dispensaries any business can own at three. 

“If the license cap is removed, we’re going to see [multi-state cannabis businesses] gobbling up equity businesses, consolidating the market and devaluing the value of licenses for those who are in the industry,” said Kevin Gilnack, Deputy Director of the cannabis advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now, in a phone interview ahead of the hearing. 

Kimberly Roy, a commissioner on the Cannabis Control Commission, submitted written testimony to the legislative committee in favor of maintaining the license cap.    

“Current statutory ownership limits help to create a Massachusetts cannabis industry that encourages full participation, competition, locally owned and operated entrepreneurship … while fostering a diverse marketplace,” said Roy. “Current proposals to lift the current license cap threaten to undermine these goals, harm those we are mandated to help and as a by-product may create a ‘Walmart effect’ supply chain where market consolidation, buying power and price manipulation can be controlled by the wealthy few.”  

The cannabis industry has been struggling with the falling price of marijuana and the lack of access to capital. Social equity business owners – who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and, by definition, have limited access to capital – have been particularly hit by debt and the challenges of the industry.  

Two bills that would double cannabis purchase and possession limits and make it easier for those who work in the cannabis industry to get registered received widespread support at the hearing. Currently, every person who works at a cannabis business must get a separate registration for every different licensed establishment. One person may need multiple registrations, which is costly for business owners. The industry widely supports making the change to streamline the process.  

Another bill would make it so that medical marijuana businesses no longer have to cultivate, process, and dispense cannabis to maintain their licenses. In addition to removing that requirement, the bill would also decrease the licensing fee for medical dispensaries and allow people from other states to use their medical marijuana cards at Massachusetts medical dispensaries.  

“​​We need to reinvest in the future of the program, and that means streamlining it, modernizing it, and removing the shackles that limit patient access and prevent equity [owners] from participating in the medical industry,” said Jeremiah MacKinnon, the president of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. “We brought these issues to the [Cannabis Control] Commission’s attention, but after six years of advocacy, nothing’s changed. It has not been on their list of priorities.”  

The post Legislators consider 8 bills to increase cap on cannabis dispensary ownership  appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

MASSACHUSETTS INSPECTOR GENERAL Jeffrey Shapiro called on the Cannabis Control Commission to conduct an audit following the commission’s failure to collect approximately $550,000 in licensing fees since August 2022. 

In a letter to Travis Ahern, the newly appointed executive director, and Bruce Stebbins, the acting commission chair, Shapiro wrote that the agency’s failure to collect fees is an “egregious operational breakdown” that suggests “poor business practices and oversight.”  

In August 2024, the commission publicly admitted to failing to collect $555,671 in license renewal extension fees. The commissioners began to allow license extensions of up to 120 days in August 2022 and directed the staff to collect prorated license fees to cover the extension. The commission failed to collect those extension fees.  

Shapiro also found that the commission staff was granting extensions prior to the commission’s August 2022 vote without having the authority to do so. 

“The inability of CCC staff to implement a key commission initiative should have been readily apparent to supervisors and commissioners in real time,” Shapiro said in a press release. 

The commission has since corrected its mistake by recouping previously uncollected fees and updating the agency’s payment systems. Ahern said in an email statement that only $170,000 fees from the $550,000 remain uncollected as of this week.  

Shapiro said in his letter that the commission still needed to conduct an audit “to ensure that all current licensees have paid all applicable fees and fully understand what revenue went uncollected, as businesses ceased operations.”  

Ahern said that the commission is continuing to meet with the Inspector General’s office about the issues outlined in the letter and that the agency will provide a “more robust response” to the letter within the required 30 days.  

In August 2024, soon after the issue of uncollected fees became widely known, one commissioner, Kimberly Roy, called for a “forensic audit” of the agency. Forensic audits typically examine an organization’s financial records and look for fraud, misconduct, or irregularities. Roy pitched it as a way for the commission to modernize.  

In addition to those uncollected fees, Shapiro flagged that the commission had failed to collect up to $1.2 million in potential provisional licensing fees. Technically, no provisional licensee was able to move forward in the licensing process or become operational without paying the fees, but the commission’s policy does require that those fees be paid within 90 days of initial approval.  

Ahern said that “uncollected provisional application fees referenced in the OIG’s letter is subject to misinterpretation” and that “fees from provisionally approved applicants are only due if the applicants choose to proceed to final licensure.” 

Kevin Gilnack, president of the cannabis advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now, said that $1.2 million claim seems “pretty sensational,” but it doesn’t seem like “any harm was caused by not enforcing it.” 

“No one can advance without paying the provisional fee [so] it doesn’t sound like the CCC was missing out of any fees,” said Gilnack.  

Last summer, Shapiro called on the Legislature to appoint a receiver and restructure the agency to clarify the leadership roles of the executive director and commission chair. Treasurer Deb Goldberg suspended and subsequently fired the commission’s previous chair, Shannon O’Brien, due to accusations of “racially, ethnically, and culturally insensitive statements.” Goldberg is the appointing authority for the commission chair role. 

O’Brien has alleged that she was fired for trying to rectify the dysfunction at the agency and is still actively fighting her dismissal in court. The commission has had internal conflict, allegations of misconduct, and a slow-moving regulatory process that has frustrated many within the cannabis industry. 

Shapiro said the time for a receiver has passed but that reform at the embattled agency is still necessary. The commission, he said, needs to work out the roles and responsibilities of the chair and executive director. “Until that issue is addressed, I fear that responsibility and accountability will continue to be elusive, and the Commission will struggle to gain its footing to chart a proper path forward,” Shapiro added. 

The commission has asked the Legislature for an increased amount – $30.8 million – in the state’s budget for the fiscal year 2026. This year, the commission operated with a $19.8 million budget.  

Ahern said that the increased budget will be crucial to helping the commission update its “outdated IT infrastructure” and “would address updates to the software that tracks and accounts for license and application fee payments.”  

The post Mass. inspector general calls on cannabis regulators to conduct an audit over $550,000 in uncollected fees  appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THE CANNABIS CONTROL Commission on Thursday extended the period of time that licenses for cannabis delivery are restricted to social equity applicants by one year but punted the decision on whether to extend further, citing a need for more data collection. 

Delivery licenses have been restricted to those who qualify for license categories targeted toward individuals impacted by the war on drugs during a 3-year “exclusivity period.” It’s approaching the end of that period, but social equity delivery businesses have argued that the exclusivity period must be extended because the commission has only last fall removed a cumbersome rule that mandated that every delivery must be completed by two drivers. Many in the industry have said that the two-driver rule made the business model unsustainable and that the period must be extended until the social equity businesses were able to be profitable.

The commission has until April 1, 2026, to make a decision on whether to extend the exclusivity period past the one-year extension that was voted on today. Commissioners need more data to see whether the goals of the exclusivity period – to promote the full participation in the cannabis industry delivery of people from communities that have previously been disproportionately harmed by marijuana prohibition – have been met in order to extend the exclusivity period further.

The commission faced criticism from the industry and even the state’s inspector general for how long it took for the two-driver rule to be removed.

“Chairman Hoffman said we were the guinea pigs of delivery,” said Chris Fevry, the co-owner of Dris Delivery, in a public meeting in October 2024, advocating for the removal of the two-driver rule, referencing the past chair of the commission, Steven Hoffman. “Thankfully, we didn’t die in the experiment. We’ve been close to it.”

In the same October public meeting, Fevry also advocated increasing the exclusivity period.

 “An extension is necessary because you almost killed the guinea pig in the experiment,” said Fevry. The guinea pig needs time to recover from the damage that was done by the two-driver rule.” 

The commission’s regulations require that data on the rates of participation of people of color and those harmed by the war on drugs be collected throughout the exclusivity period. It also directs commission to evaluate the financial feasibility of the “continued participation in the regulated Marijuana industry by communities that have previously been disproportionately harmed by Marijuana prohibition and enforcement of the law if [the] exclusivity period ends.”

At its Thursday meeting, the commission directed the staff to prepare a report with this data by September 11, 2025.

Michael Baker, the commission’s deputy general counsel, said the agency needed more time to evaluate the impact of removing the two-driver rule on the delivery businesses.

Commissioner Kimberly Roy asked Baker if the commission has been collecting this data the entire time or if it will be done retroactively. 

Baker said that data had been collected the entire time. However, when Roy asked if the commission had goals and metrics to share with the public, Baker said, “Not at this point.”

Roy pushed further and asked if the reason why the commission can’t raise the period above one year on the public meeting is because there isn’t a report yet.

“I wouldn’t characterize it in that way,” said Baker. “The regulations allow for a 12-month extension. If you wanted to go past 12 months as a set term of 36 months or 24 months, then you would have to opine on whether full participation has been met from communities that have been disproportionately harmed. [The staff] is seeking an extension to get you more data to make that determination.”

Roy questioned whether the decision to increase the exclusivity period without adequate data could open the commission up to litigation if there isn’t a good basis for the extension.

“We were all early in our tenure when this exclusivity period started,” said Bruce Stebbins, the current acting chair of the commission. “There was litigation that was threatened against the commission for this exclusivity period. Making sure at the end of the day that we come up with a sound reason for an extension – if we get to that point, we want it to be able to fend off any potential legal challenges.” 

The post Cannabis commission punts on long-term decision to keep cannabis delivery exclusive to social equity businesses appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

A NEW REPORT from the Cannabis Control Commission reveals that a lack of diversity persists at the senior leadership level across the cannabis industry despite Massachusetts’s mandate to ensure full participation of communities disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs.

The report, which is required by law and was initially due in December 2023 but is a year late, was presented to the commission on February 25 by the commission’s head of research, Julie Johnson. It showed that white individuals occupy 77 percent of senior-level positions, while Hispanic professionals hold four percent, Black professionals hold five percent, and Asian professionals five percent of these positions. 

These numbers have improved since the last report, which came out in 2020, when 84 percent of the senior leadership was white, only 4 percent was Black, and 3 percent was Hispanic, but they still lag behind demographic trends. According to census data as of 2023, Massachusetts’s population is 69.6 percent white, 9.5 percent Black or African American, and 7.7 percent Asian. 13.1 percent of the population identifies as being Hispanic or Latino across all of the races. Senior leadership positions refer to board members, directors, executives, and managers, to name a few.

“If our stated goal was to ensure that the folks who were affected were supposed to get first access to this industry, then yeah, we could do better,” said Ryan Dominguez, the head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition. “There is definitely always room for improvement, especially if those are the numbers that we’re seeing because there is a lot of interest for folks to be able to access the cannabis industry.”

From the outset, when the ballot question legalizing recreational marijuana in the state passed, there was a promise made by the state to help those harmed by the war on drugs profit from the legal cannabis industry. 

Communities most harmed by cannabis prohibition face disproportionate barriers to entry into the cannabis industry, especially into senior positions, because there tend to be fewer employment opportunities for people with prior criminal convictions. There are also fewer social safety nets and less access to capital for people to enter the industry from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The cannabis industry report also shows that general employees who have more entry-level positions map closer to the census data with 68 percent white, seven percent Black, 10 percent Hispanic, and one percent Asian.

“It is no different than what we see happening in other industries in and around the state of Massachusetts with low presence of people of color,” said Dennis Benzan, the owner of the cannabis company Western Front with two retail locations in Cambridge and one in Chelsea. The difference here is that with cannabis and the evolution of cannabis in Massachusetts, we had an opportunity to get this right because it’s a new industry.”

Benzan has an “economic empowerment” certification – a category of license that is reserved for applicants who come from and who promise to employ people from communities disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. 

The state’s Social Equity Program (SEP) and Economic Empowerment Program (EEP) were designed to lower barriers for entrepreneurs coming from diverse backgrounds, offering technical assistance, training, and priority licensing. There is also a special category for woman-owned, minority-owned, and veteran-owned businesses. 

These certifications tend to have expedited timelines and get other benefits like reduced licensing fees. But, Benzan and other social equity cannabis operators have struggled to stay afloat in the industry because of a lack of access to capital and the falling price of marijuana. 

Benzan’s classification as “economic empowerment” business means that he has to meet a set of criteria – one of which requires him to hire people from marginalized backgrounds, particularly those who live in disproportionately impacted communities and those who have criminal charges related to marijuana. This requirement does not apply across the industry.

“We’re being asked to do something to help remedy the past the criminalization of drugs in our communities in our neighborhoods, particularly disproportionately impacted communities, yet the entire industry doesn’t have that requirement, doesn’t have that mandate,” said Benzan.

The commission does require all cannabis companies to submit a “diversity plan” in which they describe how they will promote diversity and equity among people of color, women, veterans, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals as a part of their licensing process. However, there is no enforcement mechanism. The failure to meet diversity goals doesn’t impact the license renewal process.

“There’s been a reluctance from the commission to penalize folks seeking renewals for failing to complete the [goals in their] diversity plans,” said Kevin Gilnack, president of the cannabis advocacy group Equitable Opportunities Now. “Right now, the data [on the diversity plans] is so scattered, so it’s hard to formulate a policy, but we need to put some teeth on what should be a cornerstone of the Commonwealth’s effort to encourage equitable participation.”

Commissioner Bruce Stebbins, the acting chair of the commission, said that he is thinking about how to do more with the diversity plans and lay out clear guidelines on what cannabis companies should do to promote diversity.

“From day one, this commission and our predecessors on the commission have been focused on engaging folks that are disproportionately harmed or lived in disproportionately impacted communities,” Stebbins told CommonWealth Beacon Thursday. “Getting the data in the industry report is a good start because it can show us that we need to do better, and we want to partner with our licensees to do better as well.”  

The post Massachusetts cannabis industry struggles with diversity in senior leadership despite equity mandates appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

WHEN BOUNTIFUL FARMS, a medical cannabis dispensary in Natick, went to renew its license in June, it hit an obstacle: the host community agreement that it needed to renegotiate with the town and have approved by the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.

The agreement with Natick was in violation of a 2022 law that banned communities from charging fees greater than three percent of gross annual sales and required that the fees be “reasonably related” to the impact of the cannabis business on the city or town. Because the agreement both discouraged Bountiful Farms from ever suing Natick and imposed fees in addition to a legally allowed “community impact fee,” the commission rejected the company’s renewal application, leaving its owners in limbo.

Bountiful Farms is not the only cannabis operator in Massachusetts stuck between a town trying to maximize the fees it collects and the Cannabis Control Commission trying to abide by the law. Last year, the commission rejected about three quarters of the host community agreements – as of mid-December 461 out of 615 were ruled non-compliant – submitted. Without a compliant agreement, these companies can’t get their licenses approved or renewed and, in some cases, can’t keep their businesses running. In the meantime, companies that are waiting to open are paying rent and spending thousands on legal fees while they wait to get their host community agreements in order.

“I have referred to the concept of HCAs and the negotiations as the ‘wild west’ because it wasn’t a level playing field for negotiation,” said Commissioner Kimberly Roy in September, referring to host community agreements. “The municipalities had an extraordinary amount of negotiation power and leverage with folks trying to get into this new industry.” 

After recreational cannabis was legalized through a ballot measure in 2016, the Legislature passed a law requiring host community agreements before cannabis operators could obtain a license. The community impact fees were capped at three percent at that time, but there wasn’t explicit language banning other fees – an opening many cities and towns exploited to charge more.

Industry leaders say that there needs to be more done to help companies that are locked in conflict with their towns – some of which are trying to include provisions in new agreements that would prevent cannabis companies from asking their host municipality to reimburse previous impact fees – to get compliant agreements.

The commission doesn’t have an enforcement mechanism to make communities abide by the 2022 law, but it is taking some steps to support cannabis operators. On January 23, commissioners voted unanimously to allow their general counsel to file a letter of support for the three cannabis companies that are suing Great Barrington to recoup millions of dollars in impact fees they paid as part of past host community agreements. To protect its authority to review agreements, the commission also empowered its general counsel to find a way to become more involved in the lawsuit, though it’s unclear what that might look like.

Great Barrington is taking the position that the commission does not have the authority to review host community agreements that were signed before the law was enacted.

There have been several lawsuits before the case in Great Barrington where cannabis operators have sued their towns to recover fees that would now be illegal. In Uxbridge, the owner of Caroline’s Cannabis sued the town over the impact fees that she paid and received a refund of almost $1.2 million. Caroline Pineau, a cannabis operator in Haverhill, recovered 70 percent of the fees she paid through a settlement after she sued the town.

Another trio of cannabis stores is threatening to sue Newton over past impact fees if the city doesn’t offer a refund. The mayor of Newton said in an email update to the city on January 24 that the city will defend the previous agreements and not allow the cannabis companies to claw back any fees.

Uxbridge and Haverhill declined to comment, and Great Barrington did not respond to questions.

In December, the cannabis commission issued new guidelines that explained what expenses – like consultant costs, environmental impact studies, and traffic design studies – qualify to charge cannabis operators as an impact fee. (Jeff Barton, the CEO of Bountiful Farms, said the company brought the new guidelines to the town to try to amend the agreement with Natick. Bountiful Farms submitted a new host agreement to the commission and is waiting for approval.)

“I think the CCC is aware of the [host community agreement] challenges and they are trying to do what they can within the law to assist but there is nothing within the commission’s arsenal that would allow any kind of substantial pushback to a non-cooperative municipality,” said Michael Ross, the co-chair of the Cannabis Practice Group at Prince Lobel. “At some point, the Legislature will have to address the larger issue with regards to the HCA when there are bad actors from the municipalities. A company seeking their HCA can be stonewalled, and in those instances, there is no recourse.”

David O’Brien, the president of the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association, a trade group for industry professionals, said that the guidelines are “two years too late” and still lack enforceability. Municipalities, he noted, can still choose to completely ignore the commission’s guidelines. 

“The only person that the CCC has leverage over is the licensed cannabis operator, so the agency says to the operator, ‘You need to go to your community and make them be compliant,’” said O’Brien. “Well, how do they do that? [The CCC says:] Show them this guidance. [The operator says:] What if they don’t want to do it? [The CCC says:] We can’t help you.”

In the meantime, the commission has given extensions of up to a year to companies for their license renewal. But now, more than 60 companies are bumping up against the end of that grace period without compliant host community agreements. 

“Those licensees are in a position where they have to make some decisions and are a little bit under the gun to finish their licensing process and submit a compliant HCA as part of that,” Kajal Chattopadhyay, the commission’s general counsel, said in January. “It seems like we are getting notice of a new licensee being impacted on a daily basis. The number is growing.”

On February 13, the commissioners voted to grant licensees yet a longer total extension of 600 days so that those companies caught up in conflict with their towns over host community agreement compliance wouldn’t have to shut down their operations.

“We don’t want to see anyone have to shutter their doors because of this,” said Roy during the February meeting. “I’ve met personally with people who are quite frankly terrified because they need a compliant HCA to do business. Unfortunately, there are still communities that aren’t fully recognizing what I see, in my opinion, as the intent of the [2022] law. At some point, the courts will opine on this but short of that, I’m relieved that we are doing something to help folks in the interim.”

Ross said the Legislature should get rid of host community agreements entirely. The industry is struggling right now with the falling price of cannabis and the fact that operators can’t get bank loans because of federal law, he added. The process of getting a host community agreement can be time-consuming and expensive for operators who are barely getting by. 

“The larger question is whether or not these host community agreements are needed at all,” said Ross. “What practical purpose do they serve to the business or the municipality?”

The post Regulators take aim at ‘wild west’ of cannabis host community agreements appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

MASSACHUSETTS MADE HISTORY in 2018 when the first legal cannabis retailers on the East Coast opened. We are about to lead the way again as the Cannabis Control Commission takes up on-site social consumption regulatory reforms, which seek to expand an industry now facing cross-border competition from other states, prioritize the success of small, equity-owned businesses, and ensure that Massachusetts remains an attractive destination for consumers near and far.

But first, let’s review how we got here. Bay Staters approved on-site social consumption as part of the 2016 ballot question that legalized adult-use cannabis, a vision that was then cemented in state law in 2017. This would allow various versions of so-called cannabis cafes — commercial gathering places where cannabis can be legally sold and consumed.

The inaugural cannabis commission incorporated social consumption licenses in the first version of regulations to guardrail the legal industry, but swiftly struck them based on feedback from officials and lawmakers who voiced concerns about public health and safety.

Fast forward to 2019. That year, the commission created a pilot program that would offer potential social consumption businesses the opportunity to open in 12 cities and towns. However, a gap in state law prevented municipalities from opting in to hosting social consumption establishments until the Legislature passed an additional measure in 2022, which was signed into law.

That next spring, state cannabis commission voted to remove the pilot program and build more comprehensive and workable regulations for Massachusetts based on the experiences of the handful of states that went first and the needs of eligible participants here, including small, local growers and product manufacturers, as well as those businesses owned by individuals from communities that have been disproportionately harmed by previous marijuana prohibition.

After many months of listening sessions, cross-country visits, interdepartmental meetings with government partners, and presentations to subject matter experts such as the Cannabis Advisory Board, we’re proposing three license types to appeal to a range of cannabis consumers, and with small- and equity-owned entrepreneurs in mind. An initial commission presentation of this new regulatory framework on December 5 laid out the three specific visions of what these business models may eventually look like.

If you’ve ever been to a brewery, you may have sampled beer poured straight from stainless steel brewing tanks on-site. The “supplemental” social consumption license type would do the same for cannabis, allowing consumers the chance to visit a grow facility and sample different strains that have been trimmed right on location. Picture a patio at an outdoor cultivator within sight of towering marijuana plants.

Other reforms under consideration offer opportunities for existing cannabis businesses that would license them to host activities in partnership with non-cannabis businesses. The possibilities here are vast and offer a bridge between cannabis and traditional industries like live entertainment, restaurants, and wedding planning. A fine dining restaurant, for example, may want to experiment with events featuring testable foods that are marijuana-infused products. The chef could bring in an “event organizer” licensee to do exactly that.

Finally, a “hospitality” license would allow non-cannabis businesses to add spaces to new or existing facilities for regulated on-site cannabis consumption. Picture a previously existing yoga studio with classes offering edibles or topicals for purchase, or a local hotel with an embedded cannabis lounge. It is important to note that this license would not allow licensees to offer both alcohol and cannabis consumption within the space.

The commission has been criticized for being slow to act on social consumption, but we needed the tools provided by the Legislature in 2022 to build this license right and make it possible for businesses to succeed. We wanted to build regulations based on best practices from across the country, and by talking with industry stakeholders and the broader business and public health and safety communities.

Whereas regulated social consumption is still emerging in many states, our peers in government, those who wish to open an on-site social consumption establishment, and eager adult consumers look to us to ensure these regulations will work for Massachusetts and balance the need to be accessible, innovative, and safe.

Massachusetts is ready to reach the next frontier in regulated cannabis. On-site social consumption is no longer novel, but represents the natural progression of our safely regulated industry. These licenses aim to reduce lingering stigma around adult consumption in social settings, create alternatives to illegal consumption in public, and open additional pathways for still-unregulated operators to take part in in our $7 billion industry for the first time.

The commission opened a public comment period to receive feedback on the working group’s initial proposed draft regulations. This preliminary comment period ended on January 23, and the agency will continue moving this effort toward the finish line.

As soon as sometime later this year, Massachusetts could be the first state east of the Mississippi to have active social consumption, breaking new ground for our local businesses, and offering a safe, equitable, and accepted activity as voters envisioned.

Nurys Camargo and Bruce Stebbins are members of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.

The post State is committed to authorizing ‘cannabis cafes’ appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

ALL ROADS lead to home, or perhaps the nearest T station.

Housing and transportation are both issues that roiled policymakers on and off Beacon Hill, as state officials sought to navigate crises on both fronts by passing a multibillion housing bond bill and debating ways to fund transportation as the MBTA faces a yawning budget gap. And the two are linked, as US Sen. Elizabeth Warren put it in a talk to the business-backed New England Council a year ago: Transportation is housing and housing is transportation.

“If we’ve got a transit system that works, it gets people to their jobs, it actually helps reduce pressure, if we can build up supply, reduces the pressure on housing and helps us bring down cost,” she said. “The problem we’ve got in Massachusetts is we’re broken in both directions. We don’t have enough housing and we have a 1955 transit system – and I’m not just talking about Eastern Mass. I’m talking about all across the state – that doesn’t work even at 1955 standards.”

So it’s not a surprise when we pulled together a list of this year’s top CommonWealth Beacon articles – stories that caught the eye of our readers and ones that we’re proud to have published – transportation and housing prominently figured in several of them. At the nexus is the MBTA Communities Act, which requires that a community within the MBTA service area have at least one zoning district where multi-family housing is permitted.

The state’s highest court has raised questions about whether the law is a toothless one, and Jennifer Smith looked into how the fight between Attorney General Andrea Campbell and the resistant town of Milton had a showdown inside the Adams Courthouse.

Another city had its own fight with Beacon Hill over whether the state’s use of a Days Inn motel as an emergency shelter for homeless families could be used as a reason to stop a proposal to build 300 units elsewhere in Methuen, Gintautas Dumcius reported.

Bruce Mohl, the CommonWealth Beacon editor who retired in November, broke the story earlier this year of a talk delivered by Gov. Maura Healey’s transportation chief, Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who offered an “unfiltered” take on her job. She raised the idea of border tolls, but amid the blowback, Healey swiftly issued her own statement saying she is not proposing tolls at any border.

Meanwhile, Michael Jonas reviewed a record-setting period for Boston as it saw the fewest homicides and shootings in the first quarter of the year, well before the city’s extraordinary stretch of low violence drew headlines in The Economist, the Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times.

Bhaamati Borkhetaria, who has been covering the Massachusetts marijuana sector, dug into whether the state’s pledge to give a hand to people hit hard by the war on drugs was working out the way it was meant to.

There are also stories about the last of Somerville’s old guard, what it means to be an artist competing to lobby Beacon Hill, the effect of tutoring on pandemic learning loss, and the controversy of end-of-life legislation through the eyes of someone living in pain.

If you aren’t already a subscriber to our weekday Download email newsletter, where we’ve featured some of these stories, or our Sunday CommonWealth Voices newsletter of top opinion pieces, please consider doing so here. We also have a weekend roundup of the week’s stories that you might have missed, called “The Saturday Send.” Feel free to share the link with others who you think want to be in the know on Massachusetts-focused reporting and commentary. If you’d like to become a CommonWealth Beacon supporter, you can do that here.

The post The top ten CommonWealth Beacon stories of 2024 appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

AFTER A YEARS-LONG WAIT, the Cannabis Control Commission has presented a new regulatory framework for getting social consumption for cannabis up and running in the state. But without an executive director, the road ahead remains uncertain.

The new proposed framework for social consumption has three different license types – a “supplemental” license for existing marijuana businesses to add a social consumption component like a “tasting room” for people to consume cannabis they purchase on the site, a “hospitality” license for on-site consumption at new or existing non-cannabis businesses like lounges, yoga studios, cafes, and theaters, and an “event organizer” license for consumption at events like festivals that are no more than five days long. 

Bruce Stebbins, the acting commission chair, warned that there are several hurdles before social consumption can begin in Massachusetts.

“This framework and the accompanying regulations represent our exhaustive and thoughtful work,” he said. “We know that this regulatory process is never quick, never speedy.”

The actual language of the regulatory changes will be released on December 17 and the commission’s goal is to get the social consumption regulations published by mid-2025. After that, the commission’s executive director and staff will have to have to develop applications for social consumption licenses, new guidance materials, and training for the new license type. 

Further complicating the process is the fact that the commission has been without an executive director since Sean Collins quit the position in December 2023. The commissioners offered the job to David Lakeman, the former head of government affairs at the agency, but according to reporting by The Boston Globe, he has rejected the offer.

The framework presented is attractive to business owners, said Tito Jackson, a former Boston city councilor and owner of Apex Noire who has been vying to get into social consumption for years now

“It presents an amazing opportunity for businesses like my own,” said Jackson. “It’ll strengthen the bottom line of our business and make us more competitive and more attractive. Social consumption also begins to normalize an an industry that is significantly contributing to the bottom line of the state of Massachusetts.”

Jackson urged the commission – which has been enmeshed in dysfunction with slow rollouts of regulations like the removal of the two-driver rule for cannabis delivery which happened in October after months of deliberations –  to move fast. 

The regulations will not allow alcohol and cannabis to be consumed in the same space and emphasize the importance of ventilation. Each social consumption space must have a menu with information about the cannabis products including the amount of THC as well as a food service menu that includes items without cannabis.

As with cannabis delivery licenses, the social consumption license will be available exclusively to social equity applicants in the beginning. The proposed regulations suggest an exclusivity period of five years after the first hospitality consumption licensee begins operating.

Expensive air ventilation systems, however, could be prohibitively expensive for social equity applicants to operate consumption sites. Many cannabis businesses have struggled with falling prices as well as the difficulty of raising capital without having access to banking because cannabis is still illegal under federal law. Stebbins noted that whether air handling systems will be required will depend on planned activities and that the executive director of the commission will be able to approve different technologies that promote air quality. 

Social consumption has been a long time coming in Massachusetts. It was legalized through the same 2016 ballot question that brought recreational marijuana to Massachusetts. 

The commission initially aimed to roll out regulations for social consumption in 2018 but held off following pressure from critics – including then-Governor Charlie Baker and then-Attorney General Maura Healey who encouraged the new commission to focus its limited resources instead on setting up retail shops and cultivation facilities. At the time, they said that they were worried that social consumption businesses would encourage over-consumption of cannabis and lead to more intoxicated driving.  

On top of that, a drafting error in the law prevented cities and towns from authorizing social consumption. By default, social consumption is banned at the local level so cities and towns have to opt in but initially, there was no process for them to do so. The Legislature weighed in with a 2022 law that fixed this issue by formally establishing a process by which municipalities can approve social consumption establishments. 

Municipalities that want social consumption businesses will have to opt-in by ordinance, by-law or petition and will have to revise zoning codes. There will also have to be a local permitting process for the new businesses. 

Last year, the commission chose to scrap a regulatory framework from 2019 that would have allowed social consumption sites to be rolled out with a pilot program in a maximum of 12 municipalities with restrictions that some advocates and cannabis operators called “overly burdensome.”

Since the ballot measure passed in 2016, social consumption has primarily been limited to private events. Entrepreneurs have created events during which people can smoke or consume edibles while doing yoga, craft-making, painting, and enjoying cannabis-infused meals. Generally, those who attend are encouraged to bring their own cannabis. For example, Sean Hope, a co-owner of Cambridge dispensary Yamba Market, has founded a private club called Diaspora that holds social consumption events around Harvard Square. 

The post Cannabis Control Commission unveils new rules for social consumption appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

SHANNON O’BRIEN is taking Treasurer Deborah Goldberg to court for firing her from the top position at the Cannabis Control Commission, arguing that the charge of gross misconduct levied against her is dependent on “speculation that is not based on anything other than [the treasurer’s] own dislike of” O’Brien.

O’Brien filed a petition to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court on Friday asking the full court to hear her case and reinstate her as the commission chair. 

“Shannon O’Brien deserves the opportunity to publicly clear her name,” wrote O’Brien’s lawyer William Gildea, in an e-mail statement. “The removal of Ms. O’Brien from her position as chair of the CCC is a serious miscarriage of justice to an honest public servant with an excellent reputation that the Supreme Judicial Court should rectify.”

Goldberg initially suspended O’Brien in September 2023. She fired her nearly a year later in September 2024 for “gross misconduct” and being “unable to discharge the power and duties of a CCC commissioner.” The accusations against O’Brien included the charge that she made “racially insensitive comments” and that she bullied the former executive director of the commission, Shawn Collins.

In her petition, O’Brien lists and rebuts the complaints against her, including that she used the word “yellow” to refer to Asian Americans. O’Brien has said many times that she was repeating the words of an African-American developer and did not mean to be racially insensitive.  

The petition also refers to an additional complaint that has previously not been made public – that she exhibited “insensitive conduct” for saying “[m]any of these people who answer the phones may or may not be college grads, but they are articulate” to one of the investigators looking into allegations against her. 

According to O’Brien’s petition, Goldberg found this exchange “troubling” because O’Brien “implie[d] surprise that someone with lesser education can speak articulately, which [O’Brien] knew or should have known is offensive.” In the lawsuit, O’Brien claims to have had no memory of even making the statement and that it did not come up at the hearing so she was surprised that it was listed as one of the grounds for removal as gross misconduct.

The attorney general’s office will be representing Goldberg. Goldberg’s office and the attorney general’s office declined to comment.  

Goldberg made her decision to fire O’Brien after holding four closed-door hearings which O’Brien has repeatedly argued were unfair. Following the hearings, Goldberg fired O’Brien and provided her with a document that O’Brien described in her petition as “an 80-page diatribe composed virtually entirely of one-sided, hyperbolic language characterized by endless, repetitive adjectives (over 700) such as outrageous, flagrant, extreme, inexcusable, and inappropriate.”

This Goldberg document has not been made public but O’Brien’s legal team said it has been submitted it to the SJC along with the suit. It is likely to be made public soon.

There has been a question as to whether O’Brien’s behavior rose to the standard of “gross misconduct” because in previous SJC decisions the bar has been very high for an appointing officer to fire an official at an independent agency. In one previous decision, “gross misconduct” was linked to intent and O’Brien’s lawyers have repeatedly argued that O’Brien had no malicious intent in making the comments and decisions that she made.

After she was fired, O’Brien released several documents which the treasurer was using as a basis for terminating O’Brien, including two investigatory reports into O’Brien’s behavior. CommonWealth Beacon published these documents as well as the closing statement of O’Brien’s lawyer at the hearings.

The post O’Brien asks SJC to reinstate her as Cannabis Commission chair appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.

THE CANNABIS CONTROL Commission, after nearly a year of review, scrapped its two-driver rule for marijuana deliveries, which has been heavily criticized for making the delivery business unaffordable.

“This is a day I dreamed of for many years,” said Devin Alexander, the CEO and co-founder of cannabis delivery company Rolling Releaf. “We’re grateful to everyone who has helped these changes come to fruition – from the Community to the Cannabis Control Commission.”

“This is a huge accomplishment,” said commissioner Nurys Camargo as she thanked the commission’s staff. “We started this months ago [initial approval came in December 2023] when we were low on bodies on the legal team.” 

Yet, even with the latest change which would permit one driver to make deliveries when the vehicle is carrying less than $5,000 of product, Massachusetts continues to have one of the most heavily regulated marijuana delivery models in the country. Most of the regulations date to 2020, when cannabis delivery began in Massachusetts and the commission threw a whole kitchen sink of safeguards at operators.

To list off just some of them, every delivery vehicle had to be unmarked and have two drivers, three cameras inside the car, and a separate locked compartment for cash and cannabis. The vehicle also had to be tracked with GPS and drivers needed to wear bodycams while making deliveries and check in with a dispatcher every 30 minutes and whenever making a delivery

Alexander said a year ago that the regulations felt less like delivering cannabis and more like transporting plutonium. 

Shaleen Title, a former commissioner who said she ultimately voted to approve the regulations in order to get delivery up and running, has opposed some of the regulations since day one, including the two-driver rule and the body camera requirement.

“I thought that some of these regulations were unnecessarily burdensome for delivery operators when we didn’t have any data from other states that required so much control and surveillance,” said Title. “Some things are necessary, like showing the routes that you’re going to take, making sure that the delivery vehicle is unmarked. But then other things like having the two agents, body cameras, and the amount of check-ins seemed unnecessary.”

A license to deliver cannabis is unique in that only those who qualify as social equity applicants – people who have been disproportionately harmed by the war on drugs – are able to obtain it. The intent was to give social equity applicants a leg up in the industry and allow them to reap the profits that the cannabis business was supposed to bring. But amid all the regulations, which drove up costs, delivery businesses say there has been precious little profit.

“Chairman Hoffman said we were the guinea pigs of delivery,” said Chris Fevry, the co-owner of Dris Delivery, referring to Steven Hoffman, a previous chair of the commission. “Thankfully we didn’t die in the experiment. We’ve been close to it.”

Delivery operators say the regulations have made it difficult for their businesses to survive. Some failed before getting off the ground and some failed after opening. All of them have struggled.

“I think what we’re seeing is the result of overregulation,” said Fevry. “There have been hundreds of thousands of deliveries completed, and we’ve seen that there have been practically no incidents. And so, at this point, I don’t understand the continued stress around making sure that all these safeguards are in place or heavy regulations are in place.”

Having more strict regulations was part of the compromise of allowing cannabis delivery to happen at all, according to Title. However, she and other commissioners believed the regulations would be adjusted and potentially made less severe as more information and data trickled in

Four years later, cannabis is becoming more ubiquitous and accepted. The fears that there would be robberies, an increase in violent crime, and fraud haven’t materialized even as the popularity of marijuana has increased.

“It does make sense politically and from a safety perspective to start out erring on the side of minimizing risk and having more control,” said Title. “But over time it makes sense to consider rolling those [regulations] back because people will have gotten used to delivery happening. People have more experience making deliveries and receiving deliveries and will have more information from which to make decisions.”

Removing the need for a second driver during deliveries is a major change, but many stringent regulations remain on the books.

“Massachusetts is more highly regulated than other states with respect to marijuana and probably the best example of that is in delivery,” said Adam Fine, an attorney at Vicente who works on cannabis law and policy in the state. “We’ve always started from a place of a highly regulated market, but I would say overregulated in respect to the delivery. It’s kind of overkill in terms of what was needed. We were definitely an outlier in terms of the stringency of our regulations. ”

No other state with legal cannabis delivery had the two-driver rule. Certainly, no state has all of the requirements that Massachusetts does even apart from the two-driver rule. Some, like Maryland, do have camera requirements and require drivers to wear body cameras. Connecticut, like Massachusetts, has a dispatch requirement where drivers have to call in after every delivery and every 30 minutes. These states are outliers.

In most states, there are no body camera requirements and no dispatch requirements. States like California, New York, and Michigan all have a much more relaxed approach in that they allow for an “ice cream truck model,” where a vehicle can have a stock of cannabis onboard that can be sold as orders come in.

“Other states don’t have as crazy laws as us,” said Alexander, the Rolling Releaf executive. “So we can point to them and say, ‘look, they’re doing it. Everything’s fine over there. Let’s follow them.’”

Cannabis operators like Alexander and Fevry give credit to the current commission for revising some of the more burdensome rules. Not only did the commission get rid of the two-driver rule in this regulatory round, but they relaxed the dispatch rules so that now delivery drivers will have to call their dispatch only when making a delivery or an unscheduled stop. They won’t have to call every 30 minutes. The time during which deliveries can be made was also expanded, from the current 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

However, Alexander, Fevry, and other operators scoff at the dispatch requirement at all. There is a perception that it is silly to require in the regulations that a delivery driver call the business to inform them that the car has been in an accident or an unscheduled stop has been made. After all, there is GPS tracking and cameras that track every movement of the car. 

Fevry pointed out that in any normal business, if a delivery vehicle breaks down, the driver is going to call the cannabis business staff. The dispatch regulation falls, according to him, into the category of telling operators how to run the nitty-gritty of their business.

“It’s overkill,” said Fevry. “We should be creating regulations that are rooted in some type of level of business logic. Creating regulations just to regulate things is not good. We have to make regulations that safeguard the community, which is a priority but that don’t also overburden the businesses.”

Commissioner Camargo proposed getting rid of the dispatch requirements altogether but her bid was rejected.

At a legislative hearing Wednesday on the Cannabis Control Commission, industry officials who testified complained about the snail’s pace at which the commission dealt with regulatory issues.

“There is a disconnect between the CCC’s many meetings and the implementation of changes, including the industry’s regulatory proposals,” said Ryan Dominguez, the head of the Massachusetts Cannabis Coalition, at the legislative hearing. 

Industry officials have a long wish list of things they want to see changed. Social consumption, for example, was legalized in the same law that legalized marijuana in Massachusetts, but it still hasn’t gotten off the ground.

The commission currently doesn’t allow companies to deliver cannabis to municipalities that initially opted out of allowing retail marijuana establishments, but delivery operators say they should be allowed to serve customers anywhere.

Advocates and cannabis business owners will also be pushing to extend the exclusivity period for social equity businesses with delivery licenses, particularly as a social equity fund designed to provide financial support begins operating.

“You can’t make all these reforms and then have all this money come from the state social equity trust fund and then not allow the social equity delivery companies to thrive as they were intended to,” said Alexander.

Commissioner Kimberly Roy said extending the exclusivity period is a priority.“We hear you,” she said. “We know this – the exclusivity period –  is on the horizon.”

“What we need is bravery,” said Fevry at the legislative hearing. “We’re still treating something we legalized as an illegal product. We’ve seen this play out since marijuana was legalized. There are no robberies [and] people are not dying from consuming edibles. We need to deregulate.”

The post Cannabis commission drops 2-driver delivery rule appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.