Colorado has seen another of its municipalities approve the sale of commercial adult-use cannabis, as new figures confirm a significant decline in sales throughout 2023.
Brighton has now approved a new dispensary ordinance which will enable four stores to open in the municipality, with two licences being set aside for social equity business owners.
While Birghton’s former city council passed legislation allowing both medical and recreational sales to take place last October, the final reading was delayed until four new council members were able to take office, seeing the final vote take place on February 06.
Applications for these licences are now set to open on March 01, but these will remain specifically for dispensaries, not cultivators, extraction facilities and infused product manufacturers.
It comes as the state’s Department of Revenue published new figures for cannabis sales in December 2023, following four months of consistent decline.
Total sales rose from $110.3m in November, which marked the lowest level of sales since 2015, to $115.8m in December.
While this broke the run of declining monthly sales, it meant that sales for 2023 dropped to $1.5bn, down from $1.7bn in 2022, marking the lowest level of sales since 2017
