DELAWARE- The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner (OMC) is seeing green after receiving a whopping 1,269 license applications in just over a month.
The application period, which ran from Aug. 19 to Sept. 30, far exceeded expectations, raking in over $4 million in fees.
Now comes the exciting part: the first round of the lottery is set for Oct. 24, and it’s going to be broadcast live on Facebook for all to see.
Not every category needs a lottery; some, like the Open Testing Labs, Social Equity Testing Labs, and Micro Manufacturing Licenses in Sussex County, saw just enough interest to match the available licenses.
The hot ticket, though, is the Retail category, where demand is high. A separate lottery for those licenses, along with any others not processed by October, is planned for later this fall—likely in November or December.
Once the lotteries wrap up, OMC will announce which lucky businesses have secured conditional licenses.
As for the numbers, here’s how things stack up:
- Open Cultivation: 93 total applications, with 20 licenses available across New Castle, Kent, and Sussex counties.
- Social Equity (SE) Cultivation: 106 total applications, with 10 licenses in New Castle, 5 in Kent, and 2 in Sussex.
- Micro Cultivation: 25 total applications, with 20 licenses in New Castle, 9 in Kent, and 4 in Sussex.