A medical marijuana dispensary that has operated in the Central Massachusetts town of Leicester since late last year became the first business licensed to sell non-medical marijuana in Massachusetts.
The license approved Monday is conditional upon additional background checks and facility inspections, and the company has said it will be ready to open as soon as regulators issue a final license.
The Cannabis Control Commission voted unanimously to license Cultivate Holdings Inc. to operate as a retail marijuana shop.
Cultivate already grows, processes and sells marijuana to medical program patients at its 23,000-square-foot facility in a former tool and dye shop on Main Street in Leicester.
The company has also applied to grow non-medical marijuana and manufacture non-medical marijuana products. Those applications are among about 60 that remain pending before the CCC.
Lawmakers and the CCC had adopted July 1 as the target date for the start of retail marijuana sales, though the state’s new marijuana law did not establish a firm launch date.
Even though the CCC has licensed a retail shop, it cannot sell non-medical marijuana until it is tested and approved by an independent lab. So far, no labs have submitted a complete license application to the CCC, so that critical piece of the supply chain remains missing.
On WBUR’s Radio Boston on Wednesday, CCC Chairman Steven Hoffman said that he expects at least three testing labs currently working with the medical marijuana program to apply for licenses from the CCC “very quickly” and that “they’re pretty much ready to go” once they are approved for licensure.
Also Monday, the CCC approved licenses for Milford-based Sira Naturals to manufacture marijuana-infused products and to transport marijuana. Sira became the first company licensed by the CCC last month, when regulators gave Sira the OK to grow up to 20,000 square feet of marijuana in Milford.
Incomplete Applications
As the CCC continues to review license applications, Collins on Monday pointed to another factor that could contribute to the slow rollout of the newly legal industry.
Of the 63 license applications that had been submitted to the CCC in full, about a third of them were not actually complete, Collins said.
“What we’re seeing is that not everything, when submitted, is being included in the applications, that’s about 20 or so applications,” Collins said. “Folks have represented that it is, in fact, complete. As we dig in, what we’re finding is some materials may be missing, some sections may be incomplete.”
The executive director said the information that has been found to be missing is “all over the place” and noted that the CCC’s license application process requires the applicant to submit a lot of documentation.
Collins said the CCC is working with applicants who submitted incomplete information, so they know what more they must supply the CCC before it will consider its application. The CCC still has “probably 30 or so” applications that have not yet been reviewed for completeness, Collins said.
As of last week, the CCC had received 23 applications to grow marijuana, 19 applications for retail licenses, 15 applications to produce marijuana-infused products, three research laboratory applications, two applications from microbusinesses and one application to transport marijuana, Collins said Monday.
“By and large, of the 63, I think it’s really fair to say we have been through the majority of them and we will continue to go through each of them as they come through,” Collins said.
