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State allots 11 cannabis licenses for region

When it comes to legalized cannabis sales sites, New York holds all the CAURDs.

That stands for Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensaries. The state Office of Cannabis Management announced Thursday in a press conference how many licenses will be granted for them in a first round, and how they will get issued.

The first round will issue up to 150 licenses for dispensaries across the state. Western New York will get 11 of the licenses. The five boroughs of New York City are allotted 70 of them.

Executive director of OCM, Chris Alexander, said the cannabis sold at the stores will all be grown by New York farmers.

People who want licenses in the first round must either have had a cannabis conviction themselves or a family member who did. They also need experience owning or operating a profitable business.

The 150 dispensary licenses are just the beginning, as OCM officials repeatedly stated on Thursday. The department did not say when or how more dispensary licenses will be issued.

However, OCM did say it expects the first-round dispensaries to open by the end of the year. The state is currently purchasing and renovating real estate for the dispensaries. It wants the ones in the first round to be “turnkey” operations — ready for business as soon as license seekers get approved.

Of course, if municipalities “opted out” last year, the state won’t be placing dispensaries in their jurisdictions. Most of rural Chautauqua County opted out, while the larger settlements –Dunkirk, Fredonia and Jamestown — stayed in.

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