On Tuesday, Nov. 8, voters across the East Bay will decide whether or not their community will allow recreational marijuana businesses to open up when legal sales go live on Dec. 1.

But according to those already in the medical marijuana industry, as well as state regulators, Rhode Islanders won’t be seeing a recreational pot shop open up any time soon, until at least 2024, regardless of how your community votes next month.

Majority of towns will let voters decide on legal sales
Barrington, Bristol, East Providence, Little Compton, Tiverton, and Warren are six of the 31 Rhode Island communities that have all passed motions for a ballot question in November, which will ask voters whether or not their local governments will allow for the issuance of “new cannabis related licenses for businesses involved in the cultivation, manufacture, laboratory testing and for the retail sale of adult recreational use cannabis.”

Portsmouth, along with Warwick and Providence, cannot opt out of allowing recreational licenses due to their existing medical marijuana facilities that are already operating. Central Falls, Cranston, Exeter, Foster and Pawtucket opted to not put the measure to their voters, automatically opting them into legal sales.

But practically speaking, legal weed sales at purely recreational marijuana facilities won’t happen so quickly, as the three-member statewide Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) — charged with overseeing licensing and rules on how recreational sales will be conducted — has yet to be appointed by the governor, and likely won’t be until the governor’s race has been decided and the legislature reconvenes in January to confirm their appointments.

A long road ahead for marijuana entrepreneurs
The law legalizing recreational marijuana that was passed in May called for the creation of six “zones” to evenly distribute 24 available standalone recreational licenses (nine other medical marijuana facilities are already operating or are in the process of being licensed). All East Bay communities are encompassed in Zone 6. Each zone will get four of the available licenses.

This means that, even if a town such as Bristol votes in favor of allowing marijuana shops in town, it doesn’t guarantee that a marijuana shop planned for Bristol will be awarded one of the licenses in that zone.
There are also a lot of steps that have to happen before any licenses are distributed.

When the CCC is finally assembled, they will have to finalize licensing procedures — including more complex considerations for one license from each zone to go to a worker-owned collaborative and one to go to a yet-to-be-defined “social equity” applicant — as well as procedures for how recreational sales will be conducted on-site at these businesses.

Prospective marijuana entrepreneurs will then need time to obtain local zoning permissions (where allowed) to open a shop, acquire one of the few available licenses, and actually build out their stores.

“Realistically you’re probably looking at 2024 before any standalone stores open,” said Dr. Seth Bock, CEO of Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center, Inc., a medical marijuana dispensary that has been operating in Portsmouth since 2013.

Bock is in a unique position as the owner of an existing medicinal marijuana dispensary, as they will be able to flip the switch for recreational sales faster than someone looking to start up a new, wholly-recreational business. He said they are currently navigating what rules they will have to follow in terms of selling recreational marijuana in the same shop as their existing medical marijuana business.

He said on Monday that Greenleaf was currently in the process of applying for a hybrid sales license with the cannabis arm of the state Department of Business Regulation, which is overseeing the transition to legal recreational sales for existing medical marijuana dispensaries.

“We’re aiming to make sure there’s going to be coexistent medical and adult-use service lines without one coming at the expense of another,” said Matthew Santacroce, Interim Deputy Director of the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation. “We want to make sure they are, in exchange for that privilege (of being able to sell recreational marijuana before others), able to walk and chew gum at the same time and service the existing medical marijuana patients at the same time as the adult-user in this new market.”

Towns will retain local zoning authority
In preparation for the new normal of adult-use marijuana being sold throughout the state, towns such as Bristol have already begun discussing how recreational marijuana will be zoned in town should voters approve the ballot measure in November.

At their September Town Council Meeting, the council spoke of mirroring existing zoning regulations concerning medicinal marijuana facilities — which must be conducted within a “General Business Zone” and not within certain range of areas where youth congregate, such as bus stops, parks, and schools.

This local zoning authority is where municipalities will be able to exercise some control over where a recreational marijuana facility is able to locate in town, but towns where voters approve the ballot measure will not be able to vote down a facility that checks all the zoning boxes.

“The municipalities are not going to have any ‘up or down’ vote on whether or not a licensee can operate in their town,” said Santacroce. “The extent the local government will have any ability to direct or otherwise restrict a cannabis retailer in their town will be by the way of zoning operations.”