A total of 68 applicants began the online process to be a part of Alaska’s marijuana commercial licensing program when it started Feb. 24, according to the state’s Marijuana Control Board. The board isn’t limited in the number of licenses it can distribute at the state level, and there is no deadline to apply.
The application is available online at the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office website. Applicants will need to fill out the forms and pay $1,000 up front, plus another $5,000 if their application is selected, according to a KTUU article. Once the application is completed, the board has 90 days to accept or deny it. Officials should begin the reviewing process mid-March.
Although there have been more than 100 filed entries since the initial launch of the online application, more than half of them contain errors that could get the applications thrown out, according to an article on JuneauEmpire.com. In the article, Cindy Franklin, director of the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office (AMCO), says there are three major mistakes being made:
-Confirming forms as filled out when they are incomplete
-Failing to list all financial backers and parties with ownership interest
-Listing a P.O. Box as the physical address of the business.
The AMCO is revising the application to make it easier to use and backtrack to complete, and will reach out to give applicants with errors a second chance, says Franklin. The AMCO website include both a FAQ and a training video on the application process.
The process is starting after more than a year of drafting and changing regulations. Late last year, the Marijuana Control Board made heavy changes to the rules, which we reported. Those changes included discussion about on-site consumption as well as loosening and then reverting residency requirements for cannabis business licensees.
Editor’s note: Leif Abel, co-founder of Greatland Ganja, is one of the applicants for Alaska’s license program. He wrote a guest column for Cannabis Business Times last year about his hopes for the legislation and the program here. CBT also covered the banking and tax dilemma in Alaska, as cannabis business owners must take cash tax payments to Anchorage, in the Jan/Feb issue here.
