The Kentucky Department of Health and Family Services announced that since opening its application portal in July, it has received 113 applications for a variety of medical marijuana business licenses as of Aug. 15. The department said it has seen “significant interest” across the state, but so far has only received two applications for medical marijuana dispensaries, in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties.
One of the applications is for a proposed domicile in Boone County and the other is for Kenton County. No one has yet applied for the opportunity to start a cannabis business in Campbell County.
The deadline to apply for a license is Aug. 31. Still, the cabinet is encouraging potential operators to apply as soon as possible to give the Kentucky Medical Marijuana Board time to process the application before a lottery is held in the fall to select 16 growers, 10 processors and 48 dispensary entities to receive the state’s first cannabis licenses in 2025.
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Responses vary by local government
Where those future businesses will locate in Northern Kentucky won’t be known until lottery winners are announced in October. Local governments across the region also must vote in November to decide whether to welcome cannabis businesses into their communities.
In Kenton County, Covington and Fort Wright have voted to allow medical marijuana businesses to operate, while Crestview Hills, Ellesmere, Independence and Ludlow will put that decision to voters this fall.
No municipalities in Boone County have opted in to join in 2025. Florence is set to put the issue on the ballot: Union passed a resolution to temporarily ban the distribution of licenses within the city, and also passed another resolution to put the issue to voters in November.
Marijuana businesses will be allowed to operate in Campbell County in Newport, Dayton and Erlanger, while the cities of Alexandria, Bellevue, Southgate and Wilder have chosen to join a growing list of Northern Kentucky communities that will decide on the issue during the election, even though no businesses have applied to open in their counties yet.
Why the lack of interest?
With two weeks left until Kentucky’s 2025 licensing deadline, the Department of Health and Family Services says there are more than 1,200 accounts registered on its application portal, indicating roughly 1,000 potential businesses have yet to apply.
Elizabeth Kirby, owner of Your CBD Store in Florence, is among the undecided applicants. She said uncertainty about which municipalities will allow medical marijuana sales and the high costs of opening a dispensary on top of state fees could be why Kentucky has so many half-hearted applications.
“The unknowns are holding us back,” she told WVXU.[Kentucky] They give you a ballpark figure for how much cash you should have on hand, and then you dig in and you realize you probably need two or three times that amount. We’re a small, privately owned business. We’re not a big corporation.”
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Applying to obtain a cannabis license is not free. The application fee in Kentucky is $5,000, and if your business is selected, there is a non-refundable initial license fee of $30,000, plus a $30,000 annual renewal fee to maintain your license. For marijuana growers, application fees can be up to $30,000 for Tier IV growers, plus $100,000 for the initial license fee and annual renewal fees.
Even if some of these potential businesses apply, there’s no guarantee they’ll be granted a cannabis license in their desired location. Kentucky has 11 medical marijuana dispensary regions, with multiple counties within each region. While a region can have at least four dispensary licenses, the first round of license issuance in 2025 will allow only one marijuana dispensary per county (except for Fayette and Jefferson counties, home to Lexington and Louisville). This could further complicate an already long and complicated process for potential dispensary owners.
“You have to find a location in the city that’s favorable for a pharmacy, and it can’t be within 1,000 feet of a school or daycare. You also have to make sure that whoever you’re renting or buying from, especially if you’re renting, the landlord is supportive of having a pharmacy on their property,” Kirby says. “That has to be addressed in the application as well. So there’s a lot of little things that go into it. It just has to be perfect.”
Kirby hasn’t decided whether to apply for a license, but he said he’s heard there have been only two applicants in his area, which could improve his chances when the winners are announced in October.