Delaware officials say they have received more than 1,200 applications for marijuana business licenses ahead of a lottery for retailers—which is “substantially” more than they anticipated after opening up the application window in August.

From August 19 to September 30, the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner (OMC) took in 1,269 paid license applications, with fees totaling about $4.1 million. The first licensing lottery for retailers is set to take place on October 24.

“For three of the license categories—Open Testing Lab, Social Equity Testing Lab, and Micro Manufacturing Licenses for Sussex County—the number of applications received matched or fell below the available licenses in those categories; therefore, no lottery will be required,” OMC said.

Due to the “significant interest” in retail licenses, however, the office said it will “conduct a separate lottery for all Retail licenses and any other license categories not reviewed in time for the first lottery in October. This lottery phase is tentatively scheduled for late November or early December.”

A total of 125 licenses will ultimately be issued, including 30 retailers, 60 cultivators, 30 manufacturers and five testing labs. Earlier this month, regulators also detailed what portion of each category is reserved for social equity applicants,

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“These things seem to be simple, and that’s what we’re learning: Everything isn’t simple.”

By Dilpreet Raju, Capitol News Illinois

While Illinois’s cannabis market is booming and the state has made progress in diversifying new licensees, significant hurdles remain for businesses hoping to enter the expanding market, according to an independent review of the industry.

Celebratory news releases have marked several industry successes in recent months—the state saw the opening of its 100th social equity cannabis dispensary and surpassed $1 billion in cannabis sales in 2024.

Gov. JB Pritzker (D), since signing the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act in 2019, has often repeated that social equity is at the core of Illinois’ cannabis program. In July, he praised a newly commissioned, independent diversity report regarding the industry that identified progress—and hurdles—for the stated diversification goal.

The independent diversity study—commissioned by the state at a cost of $2.5 million by Peoria-based Nerevu Group consulting firm—found that while the state has awarded more licenses to women and people of color than any other regulated market in the United States, white men are still the demographic most likely to have a cannabis license in Illinois.

But the Department of Agriculture’s most recent licensee

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