Under threat of a $10K-per-day fine, RI retail pot company takes down billboards
PAWTUCKET — Marijuana retailer Joe Pakuris’ defiant revolt against what he calls Rhode Island’s unfair ban on pot advertising was short lived.
On Sunday, the three Interstate 95 billboards he erected days earlier came down under threat from state regulators that his Mother Earth Wellness dispensary would otherwise face a $10,000-a-day fine and Pakuris could lose his license to sell marijuana to both medical patients and recreational users.
“I think it’s totally unfair and negligent on DBR’s part that they haven’t amended this ridiculous ban since the beginning of the program,” Pakuris said. The Department of Business Regulation “has done nothing to get this program off the ground.”
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Lawmakers approved recreational sale of marijuana last May, but it took Gov. Dan McKee a full year to name three nominees to a new Cannabis Control Commission, which among other duties, is tasked with reviewing advertising rules established a decade ago when the medical marijuana program began.
What infuriates Pakuris is that his Massachusetts dispensary competitors are free to advertise along Rhode Island’s roadways – including just across I-95 from his own dispensary – while he and six other in-state dispensaries can’t.
The Rhode Island marijuana regulation in question reads in part: “No licensee or agent of a licensee may … advertise in any manner that is viewable or can otherwise be perceived in a public space, including but not limited to billboards, bus wraps, benches, adopt a highway signs, or any format that may be viewable from roads or walkways.”
More: In the shadow of Massachusetts retail pot, Rhode Island dispensaries try to find their footing
Matthew Santacroce, DBR’s deputy director, reiterated that regulation in a letter to Pakuris’ lawyer on Friday that also spelled out the consequences if the billboards were not removed by 9 a.m. the following Monday.
Santacroce noted that DBR supports legislation, unanimously approved in the House, that would give DBR's cannabis regulation office the power to make rules on marijuana advertising now while the cannabis commission is formed. (McKee's three commission nominees are awaiting Senate approval.)
“However,” said Santacroce, “the department and its licensees must continue to abide by the regulation until such time as the proposed amendments become law.”
'They didn't need to waste all this time'
Pakuris says the legislation is unnecessary; the DBR has always had the power to write “a one-page, temporary guidance” that would simply allow roadway billboards to perhaps capture those Rhode Islanders who would otherwise cross the state line to buy marijuana.
“They didn’t need to waste all this time,” Pakuris said. “They just didn't want to do it and I don’t know why.”
Pakuris said it cost him $6,000 to have the three highway billboards erected last Thursday and Friday, each pointing motorists to the nearest exit to get to his dispensary.
It cost him another $5,000 to have billboard riggers come on Sunday and strip them down.
Contact Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Mother Earth Wellness dispensary in Pawtucket takes down billboards
