A Massachusetts appeals court has sided with Cambridge in a lawsuit over the city’s cannabis licensing moratorium, according to a MassLive.com report.
Revolutionary Clinics, a licensed medical cannabis dispensary that has been operational since 2018, sued Cambridge last year over a city ordinance that allows only economic empowerment applicants to receive adult-use dispensary licenses for the first two-years of the licensing process in an attempt to ensure those disproportionately impacted by prohibition have access to the industry.
A Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled in January that licensed medical cannabis dispensaries in Cambridge must be able to immediately seek licensure in the adult-use market, arguing that the city’s ordinance was in direct conflict with state law, as well as the Cannabis Control Commission’s adult-use cannabis regulations.
The appeals court vacated that decision April 24, when Associate Justice Joseph M. Ditkoff ruled that nothing in Cambridge’s ordinance conflicts with regulations surrounding priority applicants and that the evidence of economic harm resulting from the ordinance was minimal, MassLive.com reported.
Revolutionary Clinics issued a statement to the news outlet, indicating that it was disappointed in the decision.
"Our team remains hopeful for future affirmative resolution as today’s decision signals an invitation to seek reinstatement of the preliminary injunction based on other grounds,” the statement said. “While Revolutionary Clinics firmly believes that the original decision of the Superior Court judge granting the preliminary injunction was absolutely correct and will ultimately be upheld, it intends, in keeping with the Single Justice’s language, to promptly ask the Superior Court to reinstate its preliminary injunction based on grounds other than the sole ground considered by the Single Justice."
