The state of Michigan has asked over two hundred of its marijuana shops to close its doors. State regulators said on Thursday that they ordered the closure of 210 medical marijuana businesses over a two week period.
The regulators said that most of the closings were due to owners failing to apply for a state license by mid February when the deadline was up. The other reason was that they did not receive authorization from their municipalities.
The stores were shuttered across the state with 158 of them in Detroit alone. Eight businesses in Lansing also received hand-delivered cease and desist orders as well as seven in Flint, five in Gaylord, three in both Ann Arbor and Battle Creek each.
“We had our team scour publicly available information to create a list and then we cross-referenced it with those who did turn in applications,” said David Harns, spokesman for the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs. The department also includes the Bureau of Medical Marihuana Regulation.
“If it’s considered an incomplete application, it can possibly be fixed,” he said. “Our team is receiving phone calls from people who have questions about this. … If they feel like they received a letter in error, we obviously have an open form of communication with them.”
