Recreational marijuana businesses submit over 60 applications for Lansing

LANSING – The city of Lansing received over 60 applications for recreational, or adult-use, marijuana business licenses during a 30-day enrollment period that ended last week, moving the city one step closer to its first non-medical sale.

The enrollment period, which began on Dec. 23, was the first in which the city accepted applications for recreational retail, grow, consumption and microbusiness licenses.

The application totals are as follows, according to Lansing officials:

• Adult-use consumption - 10
• Adult-use grower - 26
• Adult-use microbusinesses - 4
• Adult-use retailer - 22

The city also received eight applications for adult-use processor licenses, three for medical marijuana grower licenses, one for an adult-use transporter license and one for a medical marijuana processor license.

Each application was submitted along with a non-refundable $5,000 application fee.

Chris Swope, Lansing's city clerk, said he was hopeful that the first recreational operations will be open by "late March or mid-April."

The number of applications creates competition among the businesses for some license types due to caps and restrictions.

The number of consumption facilities, where customers over the age of 21 can use marijuana products, is capped at one location in each of the city's four wards.

City officials said that there was at least one license application for every ward. Should the city award licenses to a consumption business in each of the four wards, six applicants would be denied licenses.

Adult-use microbusinesses, which can grow, process and sell marijuana, also are capped at one location per ward.

The city received two applications each for the 1st and 3rd Wards, but received no applications for the  2nd and 4th Wards.

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For marijuana retailers, the competition is even more fierce.

The city's ordinance puts the total cap of marijuana sales locations, whether they are medical provisioners or recreational retailers, at 28.

As of Monday afternoon, there were eight active medical provisioning licenses along with 16 conditionally approved licenses, for a total of 24 locations that count against the cap, according to city documents.

A retail location can hold licenses for both recreational and medical sales. A location that does both, however, would count as one spot under the cap.

According to city documents, of the 22 applications received for recreational sales licenses, 13 were from locations already licensed, or conditionally approved for medical provisioning.

Michigan's marijuana regulations requires municipalities to give preference to already licensed medical provisioners when considering applications for recreational licenses. 

The 24 active or conditionally approved medical provisioning licenses leave four open spots available for new entrants into the Lansing market.

However, Swope said he expected a vast majority of medical provisioners to apply for recreational licenses as well.

While the competition for recreational and provisioning licenses will be high, Swope said did not anticipate the low number of applicants.

"I was actually surprised by how few adult-use retail applications we got," Swope said. "It would not have surprised me to get anywhere between 20 and 50, for new locations."

Swope expects the application review process will take several weeks.

"We have a lot of material to get through," Swope said.

The city will open another 30-day application period on Tuesday, in which it will accept applications for both medical and adult-use processors, transporters and safety compliance licenses.

Applications will also be accepted for microbusinesses in the city's 2nd and 4th wards.

Contact business reporter Christian Martinez atcmartinez@lsj.com or (517) 267-1342. Follow him on Twitter at @ChristianM_CA.

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