More than 100 New York dispensaries that were on the chopping block of the Office of Cannabis Management’s (OCM) school proximity blunder can now rest easy.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation Feb. 11, amending state law governing how the distance between state-licensed cannabis dispensaries and schools or places of worship is measured.
The legislation, Assembly Bill A10140, permanently fixes the statute for 152 impacted businesses, including 108 dispensary licensees and 44 applicants with provisional licenses who were at the center of the OCM’s screw-up last summer.
Under state law, New York’s dispensaries must be at least 500 feet away from schools and 200 feet from places of worship. Beginning in 2022, the OCM established guidance for aspiring cannabis retailers that these buffer zones would include an entrance-to-entrance measurement.
However, in July 2025, OCM officials issued a school proximity correction, saying that they erred in interpreting the state law and instead would begin measuring the buffer zones from a dispensary’s entrance to the nearest property line boundary of a school’s grounds or place of worship.
The legislation that Hochul signed this week puts the 152 businesses that the OCM deemed noncompliant back into compliance with the cannabis regulators’ original guidance from 2022.
“The measurements … are to be taken in straight lines from the center of the nearest entrance of the premises sought to be licensed to the center of the nearest entrance of such school or house of worship,” the legislation states.
In addition to codifying this door-to-door measurement, the legislation:
- Prohibits the denial of license renewals based on the OCM’s 2025 proximity correction interpretation;
- Deems previously issued licenses compliant with the buffer-zone laws;
- Allows applicants who were advised in writing that their locations were compliant to have their applications reviewed under the New York Cannabis Control Board’s procedures that were adopted under the OCM’s pre-July 28, 2025, guidance.
The signed legislation provides “long-term clarity and safeguards businesses that relied in good faith on the state’s” 2022 guidance, according to Vasquez Attorneys at Law P.C., the legal team that represented 12 New York cannabis businesses that sued the state in August over the proximity fiasco.
The Albany County Supreme Court of New York granted a preliminary injunction in September that protected the impacted businesses until Feb. 15, meaning Hochul’s signature came just in time.
“Government agencies cannot rewrite the rules after businesses have relied on them,” said Jorge Luis Vasquez, the managing attorney at the law firm. “Our clients invested substantial capital, signed long-term leases, hired employees and built compliant operations under the state’s own approvals. The court acted swiftly to prevent irreparable harm, and the Legislature has now provided permanent clarity that protects equity operators and restores regulatory certainty.”
Hochul, who forced former OCM Acting Executive Director Felicia A.B. Reid to resign in December, said last year that she supported allowing the impacted dispensaries to remain open.
“We are going to stand up for them,” the governor told NY1’s Spectrum News. “These are entrepreneurs, they’re small business owners—many from communities of color—and this is their shot to have a chance to be successful. So, we’re not going to let anything happen to them. We’ll make them whole, and I have got to go back to the Legislature and get them persuaded to change the law.”
The lawmakers who sponsored the legislation introduced it at the request of the OCM.
Mack Hueber, the president of the Empire Cannabis Manufacturers Alliance, applauded the Legislature and governor for advancing the “critical fix.”
“This legislation, which clarifies how cannabis dispensary proximity to schools and houses of worship is measured, corrects the confusion and disruption that unfolded last summer and restores the status quo that licensed dispensaries have operated under since the launch of New York’s legal market,” he said in a statement provided to Cannabis Business Times. “By aligning dispensary location measurements with the straight-line standards long used in the alcohol industry, lawmakers are reaffirming the original intent of the law, which is essential to providing stability and fairness in a regulated system that businesses and communities rely on.”
