Cannabis companies that need more money than they can generate through sales generally have two options: borrow money (debt) or solicit investments (equity). Over the years as the industry has constricted, equity finance became less of an option. I recently predicted that equity investment will reignite when cannabis is rescheduled. But that hasn't happened yet,
Cannabis leasing is incredibly complicated for both lessors and lessees. But things can get a lot more complicated in competitive license jurisdictions. I've worked with both lessors and lessee-applicants in competitive licensing jurisdictions, and today want to highlight some of the key things I've seen over the years. #1 Why competitive licensing is different from
It has now been over one week since New York's Cannabis Control Board (CCB) and Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) announced that the general adult-use cannabis license application portal will open on October 4, 2023. For those counting at home, that is less than two weeks away. We, like the many parties with a vested
New York's Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA) requires anyone applying for a retail dispensary or on-site consumption license to submit a notice of their intention to apply to the municipality (or community board in New York City) at least 30 days prior to submitting the application. The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) and Cannabis
One of the most important business decisions cannabis businesses need to make is whether to lease or buy real estate. I have worked on too many cannabis real estate transactions to count. And in my experience, the vast majority are leases. Today I want to look the top three reasons why that's the case. #1
It's pretty easy to write about everything that's going wrong in today's cannabis industry. Today, I want to change gears and talk about some of the strategies we've seen work for distressed cannabis businesses in the past. Yes, some of these strategies may seem obvious at first. But pulling them off correctly - especially in
The news tricked out slowly, then all at once: New York has settled the Variscite litigation, and the injunction prohibiting Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) licenses in the Finger Lakes region has been lifted. The settlement was approved during the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) meeting on May 30, 2023, paving the way for new CAURD
As we noted in our summary of the big Cannabis Control Board meeting on May 11, 2023, one significant revision to the New York adult-use rules and regulations was the creation of the "provisional license." This mechanism allows applicants to be provisionally licensed without having secured real estate prior to submitting an application. Provisional licensing
As those in the cannabis industry are fully aware, the option of bankruptcy has not been available to cannabis or many cannabis-adjacent businesses to date. The courts have consistently indicated debtors who work in the cannabis industry or derive meaningful income from cannabis activity (directly or indirectly) cannot use bankruptcy, a federal mechanism, so long
Here comes more New York cannabis program litigation. After one lawsuit halted a significant portion of New York Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) program, a new lawsuit filed on March 16, 2023 by the Coalition for Access to Regulated & Safe Cannabis against the Cannabis Control Board (CCB), Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), CCB
