The state Office of Cannabis Management will make recommendations to state cannabis regulators early next year about the best timeline to review license applications to stabilize New York's supply chain.

Members of the Cannabis Control Board approved 68 new licenses Tuesday to hopeful retailers, processors, distributors and others at the last regular meeting of the year in Albany.

The board continues to work through more than 3,300 license applications submitted to the agency at least a year ago — with the majority for adult-use stores. OCM acting and Deputy Executive Director Felicia A.B. Reid said the agency is taking care to avoid flooding the market.

"We have to be really careful about how we proceed around licensure because we don't want to... saturate that market," she told Spectrum News 1 on Tuesday.

OCM officials said the board continues to work through about 100 applications each month, and has fewer than 300 applications to review from last November that intended to give priority to applicants with a secured retail space.

About 3,000 applications in a separate queue from last December remain untouched. 

Reid said OCM officials continue to evaluate the state's cannabis output, consumer sales and market vulnerabilities to determine the right capacity, and will give an update at the board's meeting in January.

The state's total marijuana retail sales are expected to surpass $1 billion by the end of the year with a total of 261 legal dispensaries open statewide.

Reid cited a recent Whitney Economics analysis of New York's retail market, which revealed the state's market could handle around 2,000 dispensaries. 

"It's up to the board, always, in terms of how we proceed around licensure," Reid said. "But that's always a recommendation we're going to make first."

Dispensary revenue is down slightly, but stores across the state net an average of $450,000 per month, according to OCM.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes attended Tuesday's meeting to sharpen related legislative action next session. The Buffalo Democrat is in Albany for the Assembly's legislative retreat.

Peoples-Stokes wrote the 2021 Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act, which legalized recreational cannabis for New Yorkers over age 21.

She said the Legislature must make changes to improve OCM's social equity officers, and more support for Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary licensees who received up to $100,000 loans from a state equity fund.

"Loans from this fund... is really costing some of them a lot of money and is close to putting some of them out of business," the Assembly leader said. "It's the Legislature that created the agency, it's the Legislature that created the whole concept. So if you're implemented in a way that was not intended by the legislation, we have to correct you to get those steps right."

Peoples-Stokes would not give details about her top cannabis priorities for next session, which will be announced early next year.

OCM is on track to hire 29 more staffers by early next year, up from 216 currently. The department has hired 36 people since August after a damning state audit earlier this year forced changes in department leadership.

"We have a bunch of hires on track for the next few weeks," Reid said. "It's all across the board: attorneys, scientists and for everywhere."

Dozens of new staff were hired to bolster the agency's enforcement arm focused on closing illegal stores.

As part of compliance and lab inspections, OCM has conducted over 1,200 inspections since spring 2024, padlocked over 400 stores and seized nearly 17,000 pounds of illicit cannabis — issuing $15 million in fines.

"The illicit market is older than any of us and so it requires us to be capable, creative and understand how things are moving," Reid said.

Many retail applicants have paid rent for over a year year while their bid for a license collects dust and expressed frustration to board members Tuesday.

Peoples-Stokes said that has to stop. 

"Don't ask people to pay rent for somewhere for a year that they cannot get a license for," the Assembly leader said. "If you cannot figure out how to get them the license for it, say that, or say what the problem is. You can't just keep ignoring it as if it's not an issue. ...We have to come to some resolution for that. I think everybody is owed an explanation."

Peoples-Stokes' staff held a separate meeting with leaders with the Office of Cannabis Management, Office of General Services and the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus about cannabis priorities for next session.

State law requires cannabis dispensaries to be located at least 1,000 feet away from each other — causing headaches for licensees across the state to open up shop.

But Reid said it's too soon for the Legislature to change the policy.

"I don't think that we should get into thinking about the 1,000-foot rule in categorical waivers," Reid said. "I think we want to take a piece-by-piece approach and understand what's happening on the ground before we think about changing any of the rules. Because we don't want to be an agency that changes the rules in the middle of the game."