In a stunning move, New Jersey regulators on Thursday stripped away the right to sell legal weed to recreational customers from one of the world's largest cannabis companies.
Curaleaf, with nearly 150 dispensaries in the United States, will be required to halt all recreational marijuana sales at its Bellmawr and Edgewater Park dispensaries as of April 21 after the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission voted to deny a renewal of its annual license, with two "no" votes, two abstentions and just one "yes" vote.
The company also operates a dispensary in Bordentown, but the commission's formal motion only mentioned Curaleaf's cultivation sites in Bellmwar and Winslow and dispensaries in Bellmawr and Edgewater Park.
In an unsigned statement, Curaleaf called the commission's denial an "outrageous act of political retaliation" in response to the company's planned closure of its Bellmawr cultivation site as it consolidates operations at its Winslow facility.
That closure took regulators by surprise.