Jeffrey Hoffman is a New York City-based attorney who hosts “Ask Me Anything about Cannabis Legalization in New York” each week on LinkedIn. Hoffman and NY Cannabis Insider have partnered to bring those sessions into print in a Q&A format.
Hoffman’s practice focuses on cannabis industry clients, including licensees in the adult-use market, practitioners in the medical cannabis space, and cannabis adjacent product and service providers. He has a particular interest in social and economic equity cannabis license
applicants, and he also informs and assists those convicted of cannabis offenses in getting such convictions expunged from their record. He can be reached at [email protected].
The following AMA from Nov. 16 has been edited for length and clarity.
What do you make of the cannabis measures passed in the most recent legislative session?
They finally passed a vaguely decent enforcement measure. They first tried in ‘22 when the Senate passed a less good bill, but passed one nonetheless, and the speaker over in the Assembly never even brought it up for a vote. I guess he didn’t think we had a problem. Both chambers pushed a measure through in ‘23, though it did not succeed as expected so they tried it again in ‘24. We’ll see how it goes. There were a few other good items addressed including getting rid of the potency tax and renewing growers showcases. We started making some noise about two bills that we are going to push HARD in the next session: the medical cannabis health insurance bill and the Endocannabinoid Continuing Medical Education (CME) bill.
Have you heard of anyone from the December queue receiving a provisional approval yet?
No - folks from the November queue who have issues with the location they submitted are getting provisional licenses, but the word is that OCM is reviewing the entire November queue before they get to the December one.
Any update on the proximity protection lawsuit up in Albany?
Crickets.
Will the processor type three license be able to sell the product at retail?
No - all cannabis products in New York must be sold by a licensee on the retail side of the industry. The processing license is on the supply side of the industry. Additionally, once we start having distributors in the marketplace, any products that make their way to a retailer will have to have gone through a distribution licensee who collects the wholesale tax.
Once having received the email stating your application is now under review, how long does that review process take on average?
There is no average. This is highly dependent on which license you applied for, how many deficiencies you end up having, and several other possible pitfalls. If you have no deficiencies, you may not hear anything until you are submitted to the board for approval. If you’ve been notified of deficiencies, you have 30 days to cure them. Some can be straightforward. We didn’t get your LPA. We didn’t get your tracking system contract. You didn’t fill out all the fields on your TPI forms. Some are more complex and may take a while to resolve. Once you cure your deficiencies and are good to go with licensing and compliance, you are then ready to be put on the next list for consideration by the board.
What’s going on with enforcement in NYC?
The authorities have definitely stepped up their game a bit. The cat-can mouse-game is now on. One tactic we’ve seen put in play is that the illicit shops will close during the day when they hear there are enforcement actions and then reopen afterwards. Read a history of how we came out of alcohol prohibition in the 1930s - to quote the Yankee with 10 fingers and 10 rings, it’s like deja vu all over again.
How many dispensaries in New York also have a consumption lounge license and how many opened?
OCM “collapsed the tier” by allowing dispensaries to do all activities on the retail side of the industry (brick ‘n mortar sales, delivery, consumption). All dispensaries are allowed to have a limited consumption space as per the regs, but none of them have opened as OCM has not cleared anyone to actually do it yet. Additionally, at some point we will get the regs for the stand-alone on-site consumption license.
What is up with the terrible phone coverage on the trains between NYC and Albany?
A lot of folks that live in NYC and do business up and down the Hudson Valley between the city and Albany regularly ride Metro North or Amtrak. For whatever reason, it seems nearly impossible to consistently maintain connectivity on this route. Amtrak offers “wifi” but that’s entirely dependent on the phone coverage. Seems to me our local economy is losing tons of productivity due to this.