Los Angeles has revised their cannabis ordinance to speed permit approvals
In an effort to speed up business license application, Los Angeles has revised their cannabis ordinance, The changes which were approved in April by the City council and L.A.’s Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR). The revisions will affect more than 2500 existing marijuana businesses across L.A.
The biggest changes according to the experts and DCR includes:
setting a timeline for the DCR to process applications and modifications
Get applicants to refile applications deemed ‘abandoned’ after January 1,2022 Establishing a new window for social equity verification.
The window will open May 26 for 60 days, and applicants will have new criteria to qualify for the designation.
According to attorney Ariel Clark, likely, the ordinance and rule amendments will help to unclog backlogs and bottlenecks by faster reviews and reduced paperwork's.
While Michelle Mabugat, counsel at L.A.. – based law-firm Greenberg Glusker says that it wasn’t common for the DCR to take a year or longer to process business relocation requests and ownership changes filed by her clients With the new update, within the 60 days the DCR must complete the reviews of applicants who has already paid the application fee the temporary licenses are issued by the city and provisional licenses by the state.
There are 692 cannabis businesses in Los Angeles (243 social equity and 449 general) according to the city data 506 business are in the process of securing provisional licenses Businesses must have temporary and provisional license to operate in L.A. DCR also regulates 1,440 temporary licenses. The state grants $22.3 million to the city to help transition thousands of marijuana businesses holding provisional, according to MJBizDaily research
By January 1,2026. Companies must have the new annual license. for more details, you can read it in: