© 2024 New England Public Media

FCC public inspection files:
WGBYWFCRWNNZWNNUWNNZ-FMWNNI

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@nepm.org or call 413-781-2801.
PBS, NPR and local perspective for western Mass.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Massachusetts Pot Shops By July 1? Not So Fast, Says State Panel

A sales associate at New England Treatment Access in Brookline, a medical dispensary, places medicinal marijuana into a container.
Jesse Costa
/
WBUR
A sales associate at New England Treatment Access in Brookline, a medical dispensary, places medicinal marijuana into a container.

Prospects for retail pot shops opening for business in Massachusetts by a July 1 target date appear to be dimming. 

The state's Cannabis Control Commission met Thursday without issuing the first commercial business licenses under the state's voter-approved recreational marijuana law.

Steven Hoffman, the commission chairman, told reporters that regulators hope to begin issuing licenses "shortly," but added he couldn't offer a specific date.

Hoffman describes the July 1 date for retail sales given in the law as an "arbitrary deadline" and not a mandate. He says regulators are still awaiting background checks and other information on the more than two dozen entities that have applied for retail or other types of marijuana business licenses.

"We are going to do this right," he said.

The panel's next meeting is Tuesday.

The Associated Press is one of the largest and most trusted sources of independent newsgathering, supplying a steady stream of news to its members, international subscribers and commercial customers. AP is neither privately owned nor government-funded; instead, it's a not-for-profit news cooperative owned by its American newspaper and broadcast members.
Related Content