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Officials still working on slow cannabis sales rollout

Jun 08, 2023 1:03 pm

Brendan J. Lyons reports in the Times Union that New York's Office of Cannabis Management is trying to get the stumbling rollout of legal cannabis sales fixed. Cannabis has been legal in New York for more than a year, but there are few places to buy it. More than 200 growers are sitting on roughly 300,000 pounds of cannabis they can’t sell. Currently, the Office of Cannabis Management lists only 13 stores open in the state, most in New York City. Stores in Binghamton, Ithaca, Albany, and Rensselaer, are the only available locally. Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state cannabis officials had predicted 100 stores would be open by this summer. The Office of Cannabis Management and industry stakeholders are discussing several proposals to get more stores open, and more sales happening in the state. One proposal discussed, for instance, would allow growers to sell last year’s crops at concert venues, fairs, farmers markets, and other events, perhaps through retail licensees who do not have stores open yet. Read more about this story in the Times Union.