On the edge of Providence’s Federal Hill and West End neighborhoods is a former industrial building still filled with old machinery and abandoned pallets.
It’s the very spot a group of entrepreneurs had envisioned for a cannabis dispensary run by a diverse worker cooperative. PVD Flowers secured the location in October in order to qualify for the state’s retail license application pool by the deadline last December.
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Applications like theirs were being screened with the intention of moving toward a lottery as soon as May to award a limited number of licenses. But then came the April 8 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose temporarily halting Rhode Island cannabis regulators from awarding any new licenses or even continuing to screen and review the 97 applications vying for one of 20 licenses up for grabs.
“We just have to sit here and wait now,” Andre Dev, one of the listed owners for PVD Flowers and founder of the Community Cannabis Network of Rhode Island, said in an interview outside the building Monday afternoon.
He was joined by other applicants who assembled to voice their concerns about Dubose’s licensing injunction and call on expedited action from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission, which scheduled an emergency closed-door meeting Tuesday morning on the ruling.
State regulations require all would-be cannabis retailers to either own property or have a lease agreement before they even apply for a license. That’s on top of the $7,500 application fee prospective pot shop owners had to pay to be considered for the license lottery, which also requires the approval of local zoning officials.
Asher Schofield, co-owner of the Frog & Toad gift shops in Providence, revealed he’s spent at least $100,000 in his bid to open a workers cooperative a little over 2 miles away on Allens Avenue.
“It’s been incredibly difficult to navigate the process for both myself and other small-scale operators aspiring to win licenses, and it’s not sustainable,” he said. “This is no way to be a friend of independent commerce.”
Dev declined to state just how much PVD Flowers has spent on its rent, noting only that it’s been “thousands” since last fall.
The commission is the defendant in three federal lawsuits filed by out-of-state entrepreneurs over the state’s requirement that 51% of a cannabis company must be owned by a Rhode Island resident.
Plaintiffs in each case argued the residency requirement violated the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits states from engaging in protectionist practices against other states.
Similar lawsuits were filed in other states including Maine, which did away with its residency requirement in 2020 following a legal challenge. New York regulators in 2023 agreed to settle a similar lawsuit challenging its licensing rules.
“The dormant commerce clause lawsuit was completely foreseeable,” Dev told reporters. “It should have been dealt with.”
For a time it was, after DuBose initially dismissed the complaints in February 2025 since final regulations were not yet approved by the commission. But when the governing rules came out last May, the residency requirement was still in place.
“The residency requirement is established in statute, and the commission’s role is to implement the framework as enacted by the General Assembly,” Charon Rose, spokesperson for the Cannabis Control Commission, said in an emailed statement to Rhode Island Current. “As a regulatory body, we do not have the authority to ignore or alter statutory requirements through the rulemaking process.”
Rose acknowledged similar legal challenges in other states, saying DuBose’s decision “reflects the constantly evolving landscape of cannabis regulation.”
“While the outcome is not the one we would have hoped for, our focus now is on carefully reviewing the ruling and determining a path forward that is both legally sound and consistent with the commission’s policy goals,” Rose said in an email.
Lawmakers in the General Assembly are considering completely eliminating the residency requirement from the Cannabis Act. Legislation in the House and Senate were heard by the respective committees they were assigned to on March 12 where they were held for further study, as is standard practice for a first look at a bill.
“Senate and House attorneys are reviewing the decision and will be working with the Cannabis Control Commission staff to consider next steps,” Larry Berman and Greg Pare, spokespeople for House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate President Valarie Lawson, said in a joint email to Rhode Island Current.
In the interim, prospective retailers are calling on the commission to issue emergency regulations that set a clear licensing timeline.
“If the CCC fails to act quickly, the cycle of the rich getting richer will only multiply,” said Tre Miller, vice chair of the nonprofit Co-op Rhody and founding worker-owner of a cooperative license applicant.
As it stands, eight shops are selling recreational cannabis in Rhode Island after being grandfathered in from the medical marijuana program. They netted a collective $120 million in sales in 2025.
Schofield described the state’s rollout to grant 20 additional licenses as “slow as molasses.”
“Rhode Island had the opportunity to be at the vanguard of the workers’ cooperative cannabis industry, the first in the nation, and instead, we’re smothering it,” Schofield said. “Due to poor planning, lack of foresight, and favors to existing operators, we are about to have another significant delay.”
Christopher Shea is a staff writer for the Rhode Island Current.
