The acting chief of the state's Office of Cannabis Management has started to impose changes in the troubled department — now more than 90 days since the state Office of General Services released a report that showed deep inefficiencies within the agency.
The May 10 report found the department failed to grant cannabis business licenses to 90% of applicants and other issues in the agency's structure and communication habits, which led to the ouster of former Executive Director Chris Alexander.
Gov. Kathy Hochul appointed OCM Executive Deputy Director Felicia Reid to lead the agency while the Executive Chamber conducts a national search to select a permanent replacement.
And Reid accepted the task to serve in both roles — ready to make changes.
"At the end of the day, this agency is a regulatory agency and needs to just work,"Reid said during an exclusive interview Thursday withCapital Tonight. "It's not just me, it's not just you, it's all of us, and so we've got to make this work."
This past spring, Hochul directed OGS Commissioner Jeanette Moy to assess issues within OCM after calling the rollout of the state's cannabis industry "a disaster."
After taking the helm June 10, Reid held several meetings with senior OCM staffers, lawmakers and other stakeholders about department gaps, including a shortage of staff and need for improved communication.
Reid said she has focused on restructuring staff to focus on their skill set after learning of widespread disorganization within the agency,which is less than three years old.
"It's a process," she said. "When I came to the agency... folks had fingers in every single pie, and I'm like, 'This can't work for any of you on a daily basis.'"
OCM also needed more robust auditing practices, she said, and the department had a history of providing little direction to staff as the industry took shape.
"People thrive when they have a sense of what to expect and what the rules are and when those expectations and rules are even-handledly applied," Reid added. "There wasn't a whole lot of that, I got the sense, before."
The report gave OCM recommendations to implement over three- and six-month periods — including building up staff and licensing operations and improving internal and external communication to unclog the application bottleneck.
Reid said the department continues to be woefully understaffed with 180 workers, but is hiring 65 more people.
The department will soon have a direct contact for license applicants. OCM has open positions to hire customer service representatives who will help the public.
"A state agency can talk all day about what it is, but if the folks that we serve and work with have a completely different experience, then that is what sort of leads," Reid said.
The acting OCM leader said the hiring process will take many months, with dozens of applications coming in from candidates in the public and private sectors.
Last month, Reid held a Zoom call with lawmakers who make up the Senate Cannabis Subcommittee.
Chair Sen. Jeremy Cooney, a Democrat from Rochester, said the call showed Reid is serious about OCM building a stronger relationship with the Legislature.
"There's a lot of hope and optimism that the new leadership at OCM will be able to kind of course correct, but I think the proof is in the pudding," he said Thursday. "We want to maek sure that the changes that are being made are aligned with the report recommendations that OGS highlighted."
She recently met with Cannabis Association of New York President Damien Cornwell, who owns the Binghamton dispensary Just Breathe. Cornwell said Reid understands New Yorkers expect accountability as state leaders rebuild OCM.
"I think that right now, the OCM and the Second Floor are working hard to renew the trust that they maybe had coming in the front door when the [industry] started," Cornwell said.
Reid also spearheaded a shift within the department's process to evaluate and approve adult-use retail licenses after widespread confusion from applicants. The department will assign caseworkers to review each adult-use retail license application that thousands of New Yorkers submitted last November and December.
Department staff will continue to evaluate about 600 applications that remain in the randomized queue from the November group through early next year, Reid said. Afterward, applications in the December queue will continue to be evaluated on a rolling basis.
Representatives with Hochul's office would not answer questions about the Executive Chamber's ongoing search to hire a new OCM leader, including how many people have been interviewed or when a decision will be made.
“In June, Gov. Hochul announced a nationwide search for a permanent executive director to lead the Office of Cannabis Management," Hochul's spokesperson Kassie White said in a statement. "The Hochul administration is conducting its search diligently to ensure New York's cannabis industry remains the strongest and most equitable in the nation.”
Reid has indicated she is not interested to be in the running to become OCM's next leader. But Thursday, she said she could be open to the idea with the proper coaxing from Hochul's office.
"I know that chamber is looking at all of its options, and again, I remain open to persuasion," Reid said.
