Joe Gratz

Florida Cannabis Licensing Case Heads Back to Administrative Judge Critical of Health Department Process

A cannabis licensing case is headed back to a Florida administrative law judge after the companies could not come to an agreement over who would control a disputed license, WUFT reports.

The companies, Plants of Ruskin and Tornello Landscape, found themselves in the running for a cannabis dispensing license in Southwest Florida after Judge John Van Laningham ruled that Alpha Foliage was incorrectly awarded the region’s license by the state Department of Health.

“Although the department was willing to issue one additional license in hopes of settling the matter, the parties were ultimately unable to come to an agreement,” attorneys for the Department of Health wrote in a request, asking to send the case back to the judge.

Doug Manson, a Plants of Ruskin representative, said the attempt by the Health Department was “like a shotgun wedding.”

“…We tried to put the two parties together, but we couldn’t make it work,” he said in the report. “We think the department should issue two licenses, because we think, under the law they can.”

Three of the five licensees authorized by the Health Department have been ruled as faulty by state administrative law judges, the report says. Van Laningham has said that the agency ignored their own evaluation rules during the licensing process.

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