Jeffrey Hoffman is a New York City-based attorney who hosts "Ask Me Anything about Cannabis Legalization in New York" each week on LinkedIn. Hoffman and NY Cannabis Insider have partnered to bring those sessions into print in a Q&A format.

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Jeffrey Hoffman is a New York City-based attorney who hosts “Ask Me Anything about Cannabis Legalization in New York” each week on LinkedIn. Hoffman and NY Cannabis Insider have partnered to bring those sessions into print in a Q&A format.

Hoffman’s practice focuses on cannabis industry clients, including licensees in the adult-use market, practitioners in the medical cannabis space, and cannabis adjacent product and service providers. He has a particular interest in social and economic equity cannabis license applicants, and he also informs and assists those convicted of cannabis offenses in getting such convictions expunged from their record. He can be reached at info@420jurist.com.

The following AMA from Aug. 10 has been edited for length and clarity. Hoffman’s next AMA is on Aug. 17 at 4:20 p.m.

How can we find information on community boards in more rural areas outside of NYC?

So what the question asker is referring to here is that if you are going to be interested in applying for either a retail dispensary license, or an on-site consumption license, those two licenses are required to give notice of their intention to apply for such licenses. And the notice has to be given between 30 days and 270 days before the putative applicant wishes to apply.

The appropriate form to give notice will eventually be promulgated by the Cannabis Control Board, or the OCM. So there will be a specific form that we’ll use and whom you give that to is going to depend on where in the state of New York you are, or specifically where your cannabis dispensary, or on-site consumption lounge will be. And the questioner asked specifically about community boards, and the community board component of this is specific to New York City. So here in New York City, there’s roughly 51, I think, community boards. Somebody knows what the exact number is, you can weigh in here. I live in Community Board 7, which is roughly the Upper West Side of New York City. And so these community boards exist all over the city. And they are not elected. They’re appointed individuals, and there is an overall board and sub boards if you will, and the sub boards have to do with very specific things that happen within the community board. One of them is the specific subgroup that deals with businesses and business locations and business licensing.

This is the group that, if you want to get a liquor license here in New York City, you have to go before the community board and you present them usually with, ‘this is where the establishment that is going to get the liquor license is and here’s what we want to do there.’ And they usually weigh in with their feedback during the meeting with, ‘we do like the shape of your awning but we would rather that it would be green rather than brown.’ And then you decide if you want to make the changes they recommend. And then they are able to send a letter to the State Liquor Authority indicating whether or not they are in favor of or opposed to you receiving a liquor license.

Now, that exact same process is going to happen here in New York City. For folks that are looking to apply for the retail dispensary, or the on-site consumption lounge licenses, they will similarly notify the community board, they will then likely go in front of the community board, present to the community board their plans for their business and how they’re going to operate.

If you’re going to do these types of things, I would strongly encourage you to make friends with the community board, where you’re going to look to get your license. While they do not have an up-or-down vote, these are important folks. They’re going to have a lot of impact on your business during its lifecycle.

This letter that they’re going to send to the Cannabis Control Board is to say whether or not they think you ought to be able to open a business there. It’s just always better to be friends with your regulators and friends with the folks in your community, you’re going to have a much more successful business if you do these things. So again, the community boards here in New York City, they’re going to have the exact same role that they do for licensing alcohol for a liquor license here in New York City. And that is having the applicant notify them and come before them and present what the applicant is looking to do, and then putting in a letter with that applicant’s application with the appropriate regulating authority.

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That form and its notification shall be made to the clerk of the village, town or city as the case may be, where in the premises is located. And that is directly from the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), the law which legalized cannabis here in New York State, the pertinent parts of the cannabis law. That notification will not be to a community board – in Upstate, and in Long Island communities, that notification will be given to the clerk. My guess is that every locality will implement some type of scenario where perhaps you come before the city council and give your presentation now – unlike New Jersey.

And just to give a brief heads up on New Jersey: New Jersey, you actually have to get two licenses, you first have to get a license from the state board that regulates overall cannabis in the state of New Jersey. Then you have to go to the individual community regulatory or statutory rulemaking authority and get their permission to open and that is an up-or-down vote. So you literally, in New Jersey, have to get two up-or-down votes. So again, to be very clear, the difference here in New York is you do not have to get two up-or-down votes, it’s just the one up-or-down vote from the Cannabis Control Board.

Do you have any updates on the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) cannabis design/build retail dispensaries program?

I’m simply going to say where based on my understanding things are and where things ought to be going here in the not too distant future. So what is being referred to there is DASNY as the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. DASNY vis-a-vis the fund that will be raised in coordination with DASNY will be managing The $200 million fund that will be used to build the dispensaries for the justice involved individuals that is the first 100 to 150 – you know, the number 200 is out there, I don’t think they will get to 200. But I do think 100 to 150 is a good number. I know a lot of people like to use that number too. So let’s just go with 150.

Those first 150 retail dispensary licenses under the CAURD license will be located in what we are calling the “DASNY spaces.” There was a little confusion here recently as to whether or not individuals that get this license would have to be in the DASNY spaces. But that did seem to get clarified. The OCM recently said that yes, indeed, if you do get that license – at least for the near future, and probably medium future – you will have to locate yourself in one of the DASNY spaces. Again, DASNY’s going to spend $200 million building these spaces, and they’re going to want them full because the way their investors are going to get a return on their investment is from the rent that is paid on the building and upfit for these dispensaries. So that is part of what is going on.

There was a Request for Proposals (RFP) put out, which is very specifically what you were referring to: the RFP closed at the end of June. And this RFP was for DASNY to select one or more design-build partners. That will be the individual organizations that will actually build these dispensaries all over the state. I think you could see them perhaps picking one or two or more in the New York City area, perhaps one in the Buffalo area, maybe one in the Albany area, maybe one in the Syracuse area, too, and maybe one to cover all of the Adirondacks in the Greater Upstate area. But I think perhaps your Syracuse or Albany winner of that might handle that area.

For me, the most interesting piece of that RFP was a 10-page document that was included as an attachment. That was what they call the “concept program.” It was basically DASNY telling the design-build partner, ‘this is what we want the DASNY spaces to look like as far as a dispensary, you’re looking at three to 5000 square foot facilities with safes and cameras and all kinds of other security measures.”

Now, if you’re not interested in the DASNY spaces or don’t don’t qualify for them – which, I guess, would mean you’re also not interested in them – I do think this document is just well worth looking at. It is not a dictate, as far as what your dispensary needs to look like. There will certainly be many dispensaries in the state of New York – which are smaller than 3,000-square-feet, which was the lower bound of what is included in the RFP document.

I think there’s going to be 500- and 1000-square-foot stores in places where either the rent is so expensive that that’s all the applicant can really get into, or just places that are really, really good retail locations. The issue here, as far as what’s going to happen, is there’s only going to be 150 of these licenses.

It’s going to take DASNY a while to build these locations. It’s not like 150 locations are going to open all the sudden, on Dec. 1 or Jan. 1 or Feb. 1.

As far as picking the design-build partners, I’ve not seen any announcements about that yet. Although obviously, the state says they want to get at least one store open before the end of the year. Obviously, that will be easier to do outside of New York City – just pulling permits here in New York City can take you a month or two. So obviously, I don’t think the first stores will be here in New York City, although maybe in the outskirts; maybe in Brooklyn closer to the border up north; maybe in parts further away in Queens, where it’s perhaps a little easier to do business as far as opening stores and getting things built. But generally New York City’s a tough place to get this kind of stuff done. So their goal is to get one of those done before the end of the year. So they really do need to get going on that. I do anticipate hearing about announcing some design-build partners pretty soon.

What is the cost to apply?

For the CAURD License, It’s $2,000 non refundable. So you’ve given the state two grand, and so it’s going to be a nice easy way for the state to pull in a fat chunk of revenue. But obviously, nothing compared to what eventually the cannabis industry is going to bring in.

But again, just for putting up an application, it’s a nice amount of revenue. If 1000 people apply, it’s two-million bucks. That’s pretty good. It’s interesting, this first license is clearly related to the justice program that the Cannabis Control Board is mandated to implement. They’re mandated by law to implement an equity program, and I include justice under equity. And so this justice-involved individual license clearly is going towards that equity mandate. In the law, it does say that social and economic equity applicants that their licensing fees are to be reduced or waived. And I do think this $2,000 number is a pretty good number to perhaps anchor for what social equity applicants might pay for other licenses.

The point of this license was an equity play; a justice play. So a $2,000 fee is what they are charging those individuals. I think what you could see, perhaps, is social and economic equity applicants paying reduced fees for six of the nine standard licenses. The other three of the standard licenses – that is the nursery, the micro and the delivery – in the law, it says those are specifically to be promoted to social and economic equity applicants. So I could see a universe where those three licenses are given waived fees. So I can see this $2,000 number being the reduced number generally. Maybe that’s what a social and economic equity applicant pays, maybe for any of the other six licenses. I think that would be neat, and perhaps well served. Then again, since in the law, it says reduced or waived, I could see perhaps those other three licenses where the law says these are specifically to be promoted to social and economic equity applicants. I could see those being waved, and no license fee. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed and see what happens.

Any news or updates on Humberto’s case?

Brooke Ann has joined us, so hello, Brooke Ann. For folks that may not know we have been working diligently with Brooke Ann to get her husband and Humberto out of a ridiculous situation in the state of New Jersey.

The great news is he’s coming home on September 16. We’ve successfully gotten his judgment of conviction revised with the help of a lot of folks including Kathleen – who is absolutely my favorite former public defender in the state of New Jersey. So we will be in New Jersey with Brooke Ann celebrating with her and Humberto when he comes home. So Brooke Ann: Love you, doll, and I can’t wait to see you in September.

And I know Brooke Ann is going to be working with me and I know Humberto is going to be working with me. As I’ve told everyone, I’m going to be working on a lot of justice initiatives here in the near future. And one of the big things that’s going to happen here, and we’re getting ready to do our initial pilot program for that is we’re going to be reaching out to folks in communities in the Bronx, one community in particular, and I’m not going to release that yet.

What we’re going to be looking to do is, as everyone knows, for MRTA, you are getting all of the very low level cannabis convictions expunged. So if you were arrested and convicted of having a dime bag, in the 80s, here in New York – which was moronic, it’s the dumbest thing our society has ever done to itself, don’t get me started. But if you got convicted of that, your conviction is going to get automatically expunged. But you need to still go to the courthouse or you need to get your representative, your attorney to go to the courthouse and get the copy of your certificate of convict of disposition, which shows specifically that your conviction has been expunged and sealed. Most folks don’t know that that has happened.

One pilot program up in the Bronx, and we’re going to start handing out a little rave card, those of you that like to go to raid with me in the 80s and 90s, you’ll remember there were these little rectangular cards that were about this big that told you which warehouse the rave was going to be at on Saturday night. So these rave cards are going to point everybody to a website where we tell them about these expungement things. One, low level, you get expunged automatically, but go and get your disposition, your certificate of disposition document, too.

If you had a higher level cannabis conviction, you can’t get automatically expunged. But we need to file what’s known as a 440 motion in the court where you were convicted. If you know people that have these issues, please refer them to me; this is what we’re doing up in the Bronx. We’re trying to get everybody that’s going to need help with this. We got the pipeline coming: we’ve got law firms that are ready to help with the 440s; we’ve got lots of pro bono attorneys here in New York – some of whom know they’re going to be doing this, many of whom don’t know they’re going to be doing this but you are now on notice. This is what you’re going to be doing. You’re going to be filing for 440s for all of these folks, so that their convictions get vacated or otherwise modified.

The last thing is, if there is anyone still incarcerated in the state of New York for a nonviolent cannabis offense, much like Mr. Ramirez was in the state of New Jersey for a nonviolent cannabis offense – again, the dumbest thing our society has ever done to its citizens, but don’t get me started – they got to come home, just like Mr. Ramirez is coming home. So those are the things we’re doing.

If the first round of dispensary licenses go to applicants with past cannabis related convictions, will there be a second round of licenses that go to those without cannabis related convictions?

Absolutely. And in fact, there was a round of licenses that before the round for folks with convictions that were for folks that were not with conviction. So let’s just give a quick overview of where we are with licensing and what’s going on here in New York.

The first licenses that were given out were the conditional cultivation licenses. If you were in the state’s hemp program, growing hemp for I believe it was two years, you could file an application, it was a pretty simple application, and you were able to get what is known as a conditional adult use cultivation license. And those farmers – there’s about 200 – are now growing the first adult-use cannabis crop in the state of New York. They are growing the cannabis that these folks that are going to be applying for their licenses here very soon are going to be selling.

There is a second license, and that is the conditional processing license. Both of those licenses were created by the legislature. So there was no regulatory review period for them. The application is open for that conditional processor license now, I believe it ends at the end of the month. Again, those are folks that were in the state’s hemp processing program, and they’re able to get a conditional license to process adult-use cannabis. That is they have a conditional license to create vape oil, or shatter, or edibles, or whatever else they want to do.

At a second round, it’s not clear that all nine license types will be issued at the same time. It’s entirely possible the Cannabis Control Board will roll out regulations piecemeal for each of those nine licenses one at a time. And then similarly open the applications piecemeal one at a time. It’s also possible that they release them all at the same time, I think it’s probably more likely that they get released piecemeal. It’s possible that, for example, they might do the cultivation and processing license together first, maybe the distribution license along with those, what I am calling the upstream licenses. Maybe they do all three of those first, because those are kind of linked, meaning if you get a cultivation license, you can also get one processing license and one distribution license which can only be used for the cannabis that you cultivated.

But for that reason, it does kind of make sense to have those three come together. But we’ll say the Cannabis Control Board will make that decision and do what they feel is best for the cannabis industry here in the state of New York.

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