Detroit officials announced the winners of the city’s first 33 adult-use cannabis dispensary licenses Dec. 22 after legal challenges delayed the process.
The city’s Office of Marijuana Ventures & Entrepreneurship announced Thursday that it awarded licenses to 13 non-equity applicants and 20 equity applicants under Detroit’s revised adult-use cannabis ordinance, which city officials adopted in April.
The Office of Marijuana Ventures & Entrepreneurship awarded the non-equity licenses to the following applicants:
- Luxury Loud
- THC Detroit
- Det Natural
- Jars Cannabis
- House of Dank
- SMOK
- Oz Cannabis
- MPP Services
- West Coast Meds
- Cookies
- Southwest Meds
- Leaf and Bud
- Playa Kind
The following equity applicants were issued licenses:
- House of Zen
- LIV Cannabis
- Motor City Kush
- Liberty Cannabis
- High Profile
- Chronic City
- Plan B
- DaCut
- Blue Wave
- The Remedy
- Cloud Cannabis
- Gage 313
- Detroit Herbal Ctr
- Nuggets
- Livernois Provision
- Inhale
- TJM Enterprises
- The Herbalist
- Ivy League
- SJTC Enterprises
The Office of Marijuana Ventures & Entrepreneurship published a full listing of the applicants in all categories, as well as their scores, here.
Michigan launched adult-use cannabis sales in December 2019, and Detroit’s efforts to adopt an adult-use ordinance and issue business licenses have been delayed by legal challenges.
“Our goal from the day voters approved the sale of adult-use marijuana was to make sure we had a city ordinance and a process in place that provides fair and equitable access to these licenses and the courts have affirmed that we’ve done just that,” Mayor Mike Duggan said in a public statement. “Council President Pro-Tem [James] Tate, and our Department of Civil Rights, Inclusion & Opportunity and Law Department deserve a great deal of credit for making this historic day possible.”
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman issued a 19-page injunction last year to block the Detroit City Council’s original adult-use ordinance, which included plans to allow business entrepreneurs to obtain “Detroit Legacy” status when applying for an adult-use license. The legacy provision would have also given preference to applicants with low incomes or past cannabis-related convictions.
Friedman called the original ordinance “likely unconstitutional” in his ruling, prompting Detroit officials to adopt the revised ordinance earlier this year.
Under the new ordinance, 160 adult-use cannabis dispensary licenses will be available in the city, half of which are reserved for social equity applicants. The new plan provides separate licensing processes for Detroit residents and non-residents, so that the two types of potential licensees do not compete against each other.
The revised ordinance also opens up licensing for cannabis consumption lounges and microbusinesses.
Two separate lawsuits were filed earlier this year to challenge the new ordinance.
In the first round of litigation, a group of medical cannabis dispensaries challenged a provision that they claimed prohibited medical cannabis operators from receiving adult-use licenses for the first several years of the program.
JARS Cannabis then filed a second lawsuit alleging that the ordinance violates Michigan law by giving licensing preference to certain applicants.
Wayne County Circuit Judge Leslie Kim Smith dismissed both lawsuits in August, but new litigation followed in September.
The most recent lawsuit, filed by a prospective business owner and a medical cannabis company in Detroit, claimed the city’s adult-use ordinance gives unfair preference to longtime Detroit residents, but Friedman—the same judge who struck down the city’s original ordinance as unconstitutional—denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, paving the way for Detroit officials to issue the first round of licenses.
“I am thankful for Judge Friedman’s wisdom in ruling today against the temporary restraining order that would have again prevented Detroit from moving forward with our current Adult-Use Marijuana Ordinance,” Council President Pro-Tem James Tate said in a public statement. “Three months ago, a Wayne County Circuit Court judge declared our ordinance ‘unambiguous’ and ‘a fair licensing process.’ Despite clear rulings issued by the courts, various plaintiffs continue their frivolous attempts to dominate the adult-use cannabis industry in the city in an effort to leave Detroiters and other Social Equity applicants out of the market. Hopefully today’s rejection resonates.”
Detroit’s adult-use ordinance allowed officials to approve up to 20 general applications and up to 20 social equity applications in this first round of licensing, as well as 10 applications for microbusinesses and 10 for consumption lounges.
RELATED: Detroit Receives 90 Applications for 60 Available Adult-Use Cannabis Licenses
While the 20 social equity applicants with the highest total scores secure licenses this round, only 13 general applicants with the highest overall score were awarded licenses because the next 20 applicants had tied scores that did not qualify for a lottery selection under Detroit’s ordinance. Therefore, the remaining seven general licenses will not be issued during this first round of licensing.
In addition, no applications submitted for the 10 microbusiness and 10 consumption lounge licenses met all the criteria for approval during this round.
Unsuccessful applicants for all license types can apply again in the second round of licensing.
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