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Business owners have waited for regulatory changes for a year. Now they'll have to wait a little bit longer. Here's why.
The state’s Cannabis Control Commission was expected to vote in favor of new, long-awaited changes to delivery, microbusiness and telehealth regulations on Tuesday. After a full day’s meeting, the commissioners delayed the vote to the end of the week.
The three sitting commissioners on the would-be five-person board spent hours Tuesday going line-by-line through the regulations, updating wording in some places and, in others, making substantive changes. Acting chair Bruce Stebbins said the commission is allowing time for its legal team to fine-tune the changes before the vote — now scheduled for this Friday — at which point the commissioners will still have some line items to go through.
“On your end, I’m sure it can be a little frustrating,” Commissioner Kimberly Roy said to delivery operators attending the in-person meeting. “We didn’t vote on much language today. We want to make sure we get it right and dot every I and cross every T.”
The goal now is to vote on the regulations at a Friday afternoon meeting, she told the business owners in attendance.
Owners of cannabis-delivery businesses have been waiting for nearly a year for regulatory changes that include the elimination of the state’s “two-driver” rule, which mandates two employees to travel in cannabis-delivery vehicles. The rule was created for security reasons when the industry was first legalized, but since has been deemed unnecessary and prohibitively expensive for businesses.
The two other expected changes to regulations expand opportunities for microbusiness license holders and expand access via telehealth updates. The commissioners plan to remove some limitations on microbusinesses, allowing their owners to later apply for other types of licenses, which was previously prohibited in the regulations. Microbusinesses are “the ground door way to get into the business, Stebbins said.
Commissioners approved drafts of all the new regulations in July, which was followed by a required public comment period and hearing. The CCC said it had received 59 written comments and 14 speakers came to its hearing.
“We’re removing the limitation here to allow for the expansion, to allow for growth and opportunity,” Roy said.
Conversation about the delivery regulations included some debate about how late delivery hours should be allowed and what new safety-and-monitoring measures drivers would have to take.
The commission’s leadership is still in flux following a tumultuous year on the board. Stakeholders in the industry have lamented that the upheaval has meant a slow-down on progress, causing harm to businesses.
“It’s a distraction on a good day. On a bad day, it’s a distraction and has an impact on the industry,” said David O’Brien, president of the Massachusetts Cannabis Business Association, in a September interview with the Business Journals. “It’s the uncertainty and the lag that has — I’ll say it — cost the industry money, frustration.”
In the meantime, competition in the industry is stiffening, with more businesses open across Massachusetts and in five neighboring states. Some struggling cannabis businesses have said that some of the anticipated regulatory changes would make a difference to their bottom license.
Number of recreational agent registrations
No. of medical agent registrations
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