Header Image: Judge Kimberly O’Connor
Now they are all going to have to go back to their investors, ask for more cash, which in turn drops share price and nothing upsets managment with stock options more than a drop in shareprice. It hinders their ability to go on another skiiing holiday or upgrade that Merc or luxury Tesla
NY attorney David Feder writes on Linked In
NYMCIA’s Big Cannabis Members Cry Poverty Over Their $20M Special License Fee
Cry me a river.
In a stunning display of corporate entitlement, some of the biggest publicly traded, multi-billion-dollar cannabis companies – including Acreage Holdings, Columbia Care, Curaleaf, and PharmaCann – just got shut down in their attempt to dodge the $20 million special licensing fee required to convert their medical dispensaries to adult-use sales.
Let’s be clear: these companies aren’t struggling. They’ve already benefited for years from New York’s limited-license medical cannabis market, with vertical integration that allows them to:
✅ Cultivate and manufacture their own cannabis
✅ Sell at 8 of their own dispensaries
✅ Wholesale to other dispensaries
✅ Run delivery operations
That’s right—they get advantages no other licensee in the state has. And yet, in NYMCIA v. CCB & OCM, they tried to convince a judge that the state’s requirement that they pay their fair share was somehow unfair and unconstitutional.
The Court Wasn’t Having It.
Judge Kimberly O’Connor denied NYMCIA’s request for an injunction, meaning these corporate giants will have to pay the $20M fee if they want access to the adult-use market.
Their lawsuit claimed:
❌ The fee was unconstitutional (it’s not).
❌ It violated equal protection (the judge disagreed).
❌ It was a regulatory taking (seriously?).
But the biggest problem? They filed the lawsuit a YEAR TOO LATE. The court found that NYMCIA missed the legal deadline to challenge the rule, meaning their case was dead on arrival.
What This Means for New York’s Cannabis Market:
The $20M fee remains in place, creating at least some barrier before these MSOs can flood the market.
Independent operators get breathing room to open their doors before these giants take over.
New York’s cannabis regulators hold the line, proving they won’t be steamrolled by corporate money.
The chutzpah of these massive cannabis corporations is next level. They want every possible advantage, yet don’t want to pay the price for it. Meanwhile, small business owners and social equity applicants are scraping together resources to launch their dispensaries—without vertical integration, without eight stores, and without billions in Wall Street funding.
These companies aren’t fighting for fairness. They’re fighting to protect their monopoly—and they just lost round one.
The Judgement
1739219308814O_Connor_Hon Kimberly A_Bio 2019
