It’s a strange day when a state agency proposes a court order restricting itself. 

But that’s exactly what’s happened at the Office of Cannabis Management, in a situation that lays bare the mismanagement and ineptitude at the heart of New York’s dispensary rollout. 

New Yorkers often complain about bureaucratic incompetence, but OCM seems to have other agencies beat. 

In its most recent scandal, the office came out and said it had been enforcing the law incorrectly. As a result, 152 planned or approved cannabis dispensaries may have to close or relocate. Eighty-four percent of those are in New York City. 

At issue was how the office had been measuring the distance between dispensaries and schools and other locations. Instead of measuring from the property line, as required by law, OCM had been measuring from the front entrance. 

“When I found out about it, I was very angry, to say the least,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said last month. “That’s a major screw up.”

A group of affected dispensaries, including nonprofit darling Housing Works, sued OCM and the Cannabis Control Board to stop the change. A judge denied the motion for a temporary restraining order without explanation. 

That brings us up to last week, when state attorneys for OCM, clearly feeling the heat, proposed an order granting the plaintiffs’ preliminary injunction. 

“Please order us to go back to the old standards,” the attorneys are essentially saying. As of Friday at 4 p.m., the order has not been signed. 

It’s possible that the office is negotiating a settlement with the plaintiffs. OCM and its lawyers at the attorney general’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

If you’ve been following the cannabis rollout for any amount of time, this saga may not come as a shock. Since its inception, OCM has struggled to turn mission-driven platitudes into a functioning regulatory regime. 

Last year, the state issued a scathing internal review of the agency. Among the charges: Inexperienced leadership ran the agency like a policy startup. The report found that OCM required many dispensary applicants to execute a lease or purchase a property to apply for a license, while simultaneously having no intention of reviewing all the applications it received.

With this latest blunder, absent any court order or amended legislation, already-approved dispensaries will need to relocate. The Governor and office plan to introduce legislation to fix the issue, but the legislature is away until January. And it’s uncertain what state lawmakers will agree to.

OCM has offered up to $250,000 in relief to affected applicants who were approved but not given final licenses. 

But in the world of commercial real estate, especially for businesses operating in violation of federal law, that’s not a lot of money. Landlords taking a risk working with dispensaries typically want premium rent in return.

“There are so many things that go into locking down real estate, particularly in New York and particularly in an industry that’s so highly regulated and volatile,” said Fatima Afia, a cannabis lawyer at Rudick Law Group. “$250,000 doesn’t really cover much of anything for the folks who have gone through a lot of the process already to lock down a lease and maybe sign a personal guarantee.”

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What we’re thinking about: How are retail landlords thinking about dispensaries, both legal and, uh, unofficial? Drop me a line at lilah.burke@therealdeal.com. 

A thing we’ve learned: New York has a professional bull riding team, the Mavericks. Last year, the team made its debut in the Professional Bull Riding league at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. They started this season on Thursday at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York and are there until Saturday.

 —Mayor Adams’ office released a report Friday on the economic benefits of each casino proposal vying for a downstate license. The plan from Soloviev, which is slated for a committee vote on Monday, bested the others when it came to job creation numbers, with 17,907 direct construction jobs and 2,736 permanent jobs. The proposal by Mets owner Steve Cohen outside Citi Field, however, topped the list for tax revenue. 

 — The mayor has been running a “hard on crime” re-election campaign. But although crime categories may be down year over year, they are still significantly up compared to 2019, the New York Times noted. Murders are up 22 percent, felony assaults are up 30 percent and car thefts have more than doubled.

 — The MTA is moving to acquire more lots through eminent domain for its Second Avenue Subway expansion, the City reported. 

Residential: The top residential deal recorded Friday was $10 millionfor a co-op unit at 1120 Fifth Avenue in Lenox Hill. Tod Mercy and Jamaal Redon of The Corcoran Group had the listing. 

Commercial: The top commercial deal recorded was $47.5 million for a 9,555-square-foot piece of vacant land at 358 Broadway in Tribeca. 

New to the Market: The highest price for a residential property hitting the market was $20 million for a 5,344-square-foot townhouse at 238 West 11th Street in the West Village. Roberta Golubock with Sotheby’s International Realty has the listing. 

 — Matthew Elo

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