A few repeat winners appeared among the general lottery winners for six retail and two micro cultivation cannabis provisional licenses announced by Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection on Thursday.
Shangri-La, a Missouri-based cannabis company, won two of the six general applicant retail licenses, after also winning one of the six social equity retail licenses. Meanwhile, Slap Ash won a retail license to go along with their social equity retail license, while Chillax won a general micro cultivation license after winning their own social equity retail license.
Debbie’s Dispensary, an Arizona-based company, won a retail and a micro cultivation license. The last two general retail licenses were won by Hydra East and Sara’s Dispensary, which is also based out of Arizona.
The general lottery included all applicants, including social equity applicants that were either not selected or were deemed ineligible for social equity status. In the case of micro cultivation, there were 8,561 applications in total. There were a total of 15,621 retail applications, making it appear incredibly unlikely for any entity to win more than once. But that is because single entities were allowed to submit multiple applications.
In theory, a single company could have filed 5,000 of the 15,621 retail applications, though they would have had to pay the $500 lottery fee for each bid for that particular license type.
The state is still reviewing applications, but the Department of Consumer Protection is planning to release the number of applicants that each entity submitted, according to a DCP spokesperson.
“It’s not available quite yet, but we are working on it,” they said.
When the state begins its second round of cannabis licenses, which was originally supposed to happen in this fall or winter, prospective operators will have to submit new applications.
The lotteries are conducted by UConn’s Department of Pharmacy Practice. The first Social Equity lottery was conducted with a web-page randomizer, though subsequent lotteries were not necessarily performed using the same method.
DCP had to wait until all of the social equity applicants were vetted for a specific license type before the respective general lottery could be held. At this point, the SEC has only approved all of its retail and micro cultivation lottery winners.
DCP is still waiting for social equity approvals for delivery, transportation, hybrid retail, product packager and manufacturer license, which could happen as soon as the council’s next meeting, on Sept. 26.
