Thinking about beginning a Medical Marihuana Grow to make sure that you can provide marijuana to the medical marihuana market? Are you a Medical Marihuana Act licensed caregiver who wishes to take your product commercial on a bigger range? Thanks to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act, now you can do so legally, as long as you can successfully obtain a license from the State to do so. This might be a great opportunity with lots of new owners seeing tremendous degrees of profit as well as success in the market. Nonetheless, if you make this choice, you do need to make certain that you obtain a Michigan commercial grow license. Failing to do so will cause your venture being, probably, unlawful as well as bring about court activity that will paralyze your organisation before it starts.
Sadly, the Michigan commercial grow license application is a long, complicated and costly process. Ask a medical marijuana lawyer, as well as they will certainly inform you that you need to make certain that you are prepared. Let’s take a look at the steps you will certainly need to take, the team you need to build as well as the position that you could find yourself in.
Who Can Apply?
The first question to ask yourself is whether or not you are qualified to apply for a Medical Marihuana Facilities license. The good news is that anybody, an individual or a full company can apply for a license. Applications began in 2017, and there is currently no deadline to complete the required forms. Naturally, there are particular individuals, that, due to the fact that they can not satisfy the minimum financial requirements, or since they have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their background, are prevented from applying. However, assuming you don’t have a disqualifying criminal conviction, and you, or your group of financiers, satisfy the minimal monetary needs, there are two major actions to the MMFLA licensing application process. The primary step will certainly be finished whether you have a final location for your structure or not. Nevertheless, if you have already chosen a place prior to sending your State application, something that we extremely advise, you can complete both actions at the very same time.
Pre-Qualification
Pre-qualification is the first step, and it starts with an extensive background check. There are 2 sections– 401 as well as 404 of the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (M.C.L. 333.27401 et seq.) to refer to when identifying who you need to legally divulge and whether they have a relevant business interest in your operation. This consists of people such as the spouse of the individual and also all corporate officers. This is just one of the reasons that it is worth seeking advice from an MMMA lawyer as it can be quite difficult to get all the information correct. The State will certainly intend to do a deep dive into the backgrounds of not only all of the “interested parties,” or members/owners of your cannabis company, but the State will certainly additionally explore the backgrounds of every one of those individual’s spouses also. Should any individual have a disqualifying criminal conviction in their past, or not be of “good moral character,” the State can deny the entire application. To put it simply, if there is one bad apple in the bunch, the State throws away the entire application. For that reason, it is very important to find out about the histories of the persons you have in your investment group, prior to applying for your Medical Marihuana Facilities License. There are a lot of things that a seasoned lawyer can do to assist you get ready for your application, and to guarantee that any type of prospective concerns with your application are recognized, divulged or gotten ready for before the application is sent. Nevertheless, this isn’t the only reason why an attorney will often be an important and required hire.
Take into consideration The Cost
Before your information can be assessed by an expert from the Bureau of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation (BMMR), you need to pay a $6000 cost for your application. BMMR will refuse to move on with your application until this has been paid in full. In addition to being expensive, this fee is non-refundable so you want to see to it that there are no concerns with your application that can result in it being rejected. An MMFLA lawyer can guarantee that this is the case as well as help you navigate any kind of tricky problems. Even more, before you can obtain State authorization for operation, you will certainly also have to get a municipal or city approval. Each city or township will also need you to complete an application as well as you will need to pay an application fee there too. The application cost can vary depending on what the city wants to charge, nevertheless, they can not charge greater than $5,000.00. Most cities as well as townships are charging the maximum amount. In total, the application fees alone are most likely to be in excess of $10,000.00. That does not include the costs of ancillary services, such as accounting professionals, architects, marketing experts and also various other services needed for your application to be complete.
When you have collected as well as paid the application fees, all candidates as well as supplemental applicants will have their fingerprints taken. You could believe that if you already have had your finger prints taken by local police this action can be missed. However, BMMR will certainly not accept finger prints unless they are requested and collected by them via the licensing process. You will have to go to an approved location where your finger prints can be collected electronically as well as submitted for review by the State.
Facility License
This is the second step and bear in mind, if you have already chosen a location to grow cannabis, you can complete this step with the first. You have to be prepared to fulfill all the MMFLA rules. During this step, you will need to have a business plan. However, that plan must include certain things. You must have all of the parts called for by the State: facility plan, security plan, marketing plan, staffing plan, technology plan, waste disposal plan (if applicable), as well as a record keeping plan. There are specific minimum requirements set forth in the Administrative Rules that regulate MMFLA facilities, with which you must show your business is in compliance.
Your facility must be located in a city or township that permits MMFLA services to operate. The MMFLA has strict rules for people and services intending to grow in a municipality. If you intend to grow in a district, it must have an ordinance that authorizes marihuana facility operations. Colloquially, the municipality must have “opted-in” to the Medical Marihuana Facilities Licensing Act (list of Michigan municipalities who have actually opted in to MMFLA), and also it must have passed a regulatory ordinance that sets for the policies and also standards for those centers to run within the city or township. The full standards can be located in 205, yet if you do have any kind of inquiries you need to call your municipal authority. Or, alternatively, get your lawyer to do this for you. As the application progresses, BMMR will certainly call candidates, offering information on any kind of other needs, including a pre-licensure inspection of your location or facility.
Authorized
Finally, you may acquire approval for your license. After you are informed of this, you will certainly need to pay for a regulatory assessment. Presently, the regulatory assessments for 2018 are as follows:
Safety Compliance Facility and Secured Transporters– $0.00.
Class A Grow License– $10,000.
Class B Grow License– $48,000.00.
Class C Grow License– $48,000.00.
Processor and Provisioning Center– $48,000.00.
Likely, the State will establish an across the board equivalent regulatory assessment for all licenses in 2019. Regulatory assessments are subject to change every year, so it is impossible to anticipate specifically what it will be. However, starting in 2019, regardless of which license you acquire, anticipate the assessment to be imposed and also for that assessment to be significant.
Verdict.
We hope this helps you choose whether you are ready to apply for a Michigan commercial grow license. Bear in mind, with a lawyer by your side, this process can be much simpler, and also you will gain experienced recommendations on how to proceed properly to make sure that your application is accepted. Even after you get authorization, legal guidance is suggested to ensure you stay on top of changes to the legislation and policies, and so that you can stay in compliance and keep your business open.
Here at Fowler & Williams, PLC, we concentrate on helping customers get MMFLA licenses and also making sure continuing compliance.
Should you choose to retain counsel to help you on your licensing journey, give us a phone call.
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