canna law blog

California Cannabis Deliveries May Soon Change, Again

For a few moments there, it seemed like the California cannabis delivery companies could deliver anywhere in the state—even to cities that said no. It now looks like that may not be allowed. In January 2019, the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (“BCC”)—which regulates cannabis delivery companies—issued Rule 5416(d), which says that “A delivery employee

canna law blog

Oregon Cannabis Litigation: OLCC Looking for Willing Partners

Last Thursday, in one of the few (to our knowledge) contested cases heard by the OLCC concerning cannabis, the OLCC accepted unanimously the findings of a state Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) and denied an application for a recreational marijuana producer license. You can read the press release here. The decision merits comment as a case

canna law blog

California Cannabis Red Tape Alert: New BCC “Change of Ownership” Rules

Our California cannabis lawyers are seeing a major spike in mergers and acquisitions (M & A), and it’s time to discuss what’s on the horizon for changes of ownership for some California cannabis businesses. In every cannabis state, M & A is no breeze because the regulators almost always require pre-approval of the transaction or

canna law blog

California Cannabis Landlords: More Regulatory Snags to Avoid

We’ve previously written about some of the pitfalls for landlords to avoid when leasing to commercial cannabis tenants in California. We’ve also written about how the state’s recently proposed modifications to its final cannabis regulations could affect licensees and the industry writ large (see here and here). The comment period for those rule changes is

canna law blog

California Cannabis: The Race is On for Temporary State Licenses

Unless you’ve been completely out of the loop, you already know that many, many people are in a race to submit their California state temporary cannabis license applications before December 31 of this year, which represents the “drop dead” date for cannabis temporary licenses. Add to that the regulatory curve balls thrown by the California

canna law blog

California Cannabis: Cities and the End of Temporary Licenses

We recently wrote about an announcement by the California Department of Food and Agriculture (“CDFA”) that temporary license applications need to be submitted by December 1, 2018 in order to be reviewed on time for approval and issuance before December 31, 2018. To date, California Department of Public Health (“CDPH”) followed suit, but the California Bureau

canna law blog

Get Ready Now for the California Cannabis Licensing Logjam

A backlog of cannabis license applications has no doubt happened in almost all of the other states that have medical and adult use licensing. You wouldn’t normally think this is such a big or concerning development, but in cannabis licensing delays can mean angry investors, a complete 180 for your business plans and even insolvency.

canna law blog

What You Need to Know Now: BCC Drops Revised, Proposed, Permanent Cannabis Rules

Last Friday, we wrote about the amended proposed permanent cannabis regulations that are now in a 15-day notice-and-comment period for each California agency—the California Bureau of Cannabis Control (“BCC”), Department of Public Health (“DPH”), and Department of Food and Agriculture (“DFA”). Each of the proposed rules can be found here, here, and here. The next

canna law blog

Cities Should Not License Cannabis Businesses. They Should Support Them.

Recently, the City of Portland announced that it would lower cannabis business licensing fees. Most notably, retail license fees have been reduced from $4,975 to $3,500, in line with other license types. That is still too steep (especially considering the state licensing fees), and although the City has cleaned up its process over the past

canna law blog

Oregon Cannabis Licensing: OLCC Increases Application Scrutiny

We recently wrote about the new Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) rules for marijuana businesses, and observed that those rules were issued with the stated intent to stave off diversion of cannabis. In addition to its public-facing actions, we have seen an apparent shift in internal OLCC review policies and procedures. A few weeks ago,