Tomorrow’s City Council Meeting on Portland’s Ordinance

Ok, so it's actually a meeting of the HHS and economic development subcommittees but, either way, it’s a necessary and important step to finalizing Portland’s ordinance and launching adult use in Maine’s largest city. The subcommittees will be taking public comment, so in terms of how many hours of comments we should expect to sit through, we’ll see if the craze around the cannabis industry or the distractions of Thanksgiving win out. I’m planning on a long night. 

A couple of particular items to look out for: 

• First, the current draft ordinance doesn’t permit the transfer of licenses. This would mean that an adult use store that transfers 10% or more of its equity to someone else would lose its license. Since bank loans aren’t really a thing in the cannabis industry, private investors are key and private investors want equity. Private investors also want to be able to sell their equity. So the ban on transferability doesn’t work in the industry. I expect we’ll hear some conversations about that.
  
• Second, THE CAP. It will be interesting to see if the cap stays at 20 retail stores total, or which direction it moves, or whether it is entirely eliminated. I’m sure the councilors are getting an earful on the daily about this.
  
• Third, the criteria to get a license look like a work in progress. They’re oddly structured in the current draft and really favor businesses that have owned or leased their retail location for a long, long time. They also strongly favor applicants who have operated a different type of licensed business in Portland for a long period of time. The lottery criteria tell us a lot about the city’s policy priorities, and I expect that the councilors will want some changes to these as well. 

See you tomorrow.

Draft Marijuana Licensing Rules Released for City of Portland

As local readers likely know, Portland completed its zoning regulations for marijuana stores last February. But at the time, the City deferred on a number of decisions such as what stores will be allowed to sell, and what criteria will need to be met to be able to open a retail store. Now the City has taken a big step toward answering those questions. The City released draft licensing rules last week. 

We’re still combing through the rules, but some notable takeaways off the bat: staff are proposing a cap of 20 total retail licenses, and a 250’ buffer between stores “to avoid having stores cluster in one location and to avoid over-saturation of the market." City staff are also offering the Council options for what seems to be essentially a first-in-time licensing system or, alternatively, a weighted lottery. Staff have said they prefer the first-in-time system.

Staff will be presenting their recommendations to the Economic Development and HHS Committees tomorrow, August 6, at 5:30 pm. This will be open to the public.