Twenty retail licenses have been on pause since an April 8 ruling by a U.S. district court judge
The Rhode Island General Assembly is poised to provide its final stamp on legislation that could resolve the trio of federal lawsuits that have halted state regulators from reviewing and awarding retail cannabis licenses.
Bills sponsored by Rep. Scott Slater and Sen. Jacob Bissaillon, both Providence Democrats, would undo the state’s requirement that all recreation pot shop license holders must be majority owned by Rhode Island residents, along with kickstarting a new application process for the Cannabis Control Commission within 60 days.
Bissaillon’s bill was approved 63-0 by the House on Monday after receiving its initial passage across the rotunda on Thursday, June 4. Slater’s companion measure, which first cleared the House Thursday, is scheduled as the final bill on the Senate’s floor calendar for Tuesday.
“This language that we have in this bill would get this licensing process back on track and allow the Cannabis Control Commission and board to do their job and rectify this situation,” Slater said during the bill’s initial hearing before the House Committee on Corporations on May 21.
Twenty retail licenses have been on pause since an April 8 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose amid three lawsuits challenging the residency requirement set in 2022 when the state legalized the sale of recreational cannabis.
The state has appealed DuBose’s preliminary injunction, though the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston has not yet taken up the case. A hearing to establish a briefing schedule is set for June 23.
The halt has left around 100 applications in limbo, with many continuing to pay rent on storefronts they may not even be able to open. Should Bissaillon and Slater’s bills become law, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission would have 60 days to initiate a new application process.
“That’s what’s really going to save us money,” Andre Dev, one of the listed owners for PVD Flowers and founder of the Community Cannabis Network of Rhode Island, said in an interview Monday. “This lets us get moving and relatively quickly.”
Still, any would-be shop owners who applied the first time for a license would be refunded any fees paid to the commission. All prospective retailers are required to pay an application fee of $7,500 and a yearly $30,000 licensing fee. Fees are waived for the first year for approved social equity applicants.
Plaintiffs in cases against the Cannabis Control Commission argued the residency requirement violated the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from engaging in protectionist practices against other states.
But that legal challenge may become moot, as both bills now define an applicant as a person or a business who has “made application for issuance of a license or certificate to own or engage in a cannabis business.”
They also removed Rhode Island references in the law’s requirements to apply for social equity licenses, which are reserved for those adversely affected by the war on drugs. The 2022 Rhode Island Cannabis Act required social equity applicants to be from a “disproportionately impacted area.”
Among the qualifiers are being from an area where 75% or more of the children participate in the federal free lunch program, according to reported statistics from the Rhode Island Board of Education.
That definition remained in the original bills filed by Bissaillon and Slater before the court ruling, which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Rhode Island warned would only partially resolve the state’s legal challenge.
Both bills now require businesses to be majority owned by one or more people who can show they were disproportionally impacted by criminal enforcement of past prohibitions including being arrested or having a family member who was.
It’s enough to now have the ACLU back the changes to Rhode Island’s cannabis law.
“The ACLU of Rhode Island appreciates the efforts of the original drafters of this legislation to focus on the needs of Rhode Islanders, particularly in the context of the social equity licenses, which are designed to help individuals who fell victim over the years to the state’s unfair drug criminalization statutes,” the organization wrote to the House Committee on Corporations during the initial hearing for Slater’s bill on May 21.
The state’s Cannabis Control Commission also supports the legislation, noting in its testimony that the changes to the law will “provide additional statutory clarity and administrative direction.”
“The Commission remains committed to implementing a cannabis regulatory framework grounded in public health, safety, transparency, equity, and accountability,” Rhode Island Cannabis Office Administrator Michelle Reddish, who was nominated by Gov. Dan McKee to join the commission, wrote to the House Committee on Corporations.
This article was reprinted from the Rhode Island Current under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. You can read the original version here.
