A group of New York cannabis dispensary owners filed a lawsuit against state regulators last week claiming they allowed dispensaries to open too close to one another, violating the state’s rules prohibiting dispensaries from opening within 1,000 feet of one another. Four dispensary owners in Manhattan and Brooklyn allege that the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) allowed shops to violate the 1,000-foot rule, running afoul of regulations that would only allow shops to open within 1,000 feet of another shop if there is a “demonstrated need.”
Actualize Dispensary, Astro Management, L.O.R.D.S, and R&R Remedies, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, contend that OCM did not properly conduct a required review before granting the waivers for the shops to open within 1,000 feet of their already existing dispensary.
In a statement, Jillian Dragutsky, CEO of Astro Management, said the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) recently granted a Public Convenience Waiver to a dispensary seeking to open within 1,000 feet from a dispensary owned by Astro Management, which puts the company “in an untenable position” and “endangering its viability as a business” when the dispensary is “only weeks away from launching.”
“It’s as though the rug were pulled