Before January 2018, when California launched its legal recreational cannabis market, estimates of how many dispensaries peppered the state’s landscape were in the thousands.
But once state licenses were required – and with that, express local city or county approval – the number dropped dramatically, to just a few hundred.
That was the first instance of serious market contraction in California, but it’s far from the last as the state tries to clean up after decades of gray-market sales.
See the chart at :
https://mjbizdaily.com/california-cannabis-license-contraction-2019/