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Committee advances moratorium on new cannabis licenses with technical date fix; department had no pending applications
Summary
Sen. Ken Bogner said SB 27 would pause issuance of new cannabis licenses and preserve existing licenses; the Cannabis Control Division and Department of Revenue said they had no pending new-applicant backlog and agreed the effective date could be adjusted for accounting (committee adopted a conceptual amendment moving June 30 to July 1).
Senator Ken Bogner opened Senate Bill 27 by saying the bill would pause the issuance of new cannabis licenses and leave existing licenses in place. “If this bill passes, things will continue as they are today,” Bogner said, explaining the fiscal-note impact is expressed as licensing revenue that would not materialize if new licenses are paused.
Informational witnesses from the Department of Revenue and the Cannabis Control Division answered technical questions. Division administrator Kristen Barber told the committee there was no reliable estimate of how many new applicants would enter the market if the moratorium did not pass and said she was not aware of pending new applications at the time of the hearing. Committee members asked about the effective date; Barber and department staff said moving the implementation date to July 1 would be an accounting alignment with fiscal-year reporting and would not create additional administrative burden.
The committee considered a technical amendment to change the date from June 30 to July 1 to better align with department accounting; the sponsor supported that change. In executive action later in the transcript, the committee passed SB 27 as amended.
What happens next: SB 27 was advanced in executive action with a technical amendment to the effective date; the department reported no pending new-applicant backlog in the hearing record.
