A federal judge blocked Rhode Island’s cannabis retail lottery on Wednesday, freezing applications from 97 businesses that had been waiting on 20 new licenses expected to go out as soon as May.

U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose issued the preliminary injunction against the Cannabis Control Commission, shutting down all application screening and review. Three separate federal lawsuits challenging Rhode Island’s residency requirement for retail licenses triggered the order. No lottery. No reviews. Nothing moves.

“It’s very disheartening right now,” said Jason Calderon, a cultivator who had applied for a retail license in North Kingstown. “This most certainly could have been avoided. All we’ve done now is give more time to the existing monopolies to be a monopoly.”

Hard to argue with that. The 97 applicants who followed the rules, paid their fees, and waited aren’t the ones who sued. They’re just the ones absorbing the damage.

The legal chain started in May 2024, when California cannabis entrepreneur Justyna Jensen sued the Cannabis Control Commission in U.S. District Court in Providence. Jensen’s complaint was straightforward: Rhode Island’s residency requirement, baked into the state’s 2022 Cannabis Act, violated interstate commerce protections under the U.S. Constitution. She’d run similar legal challenges in other states, including California and New York. In her initial filing, Jensen also flagged that she intended to hold majority ownership in a social equity business, a license category set aside for people who bore the heaviest costs of drug enforcement.

A second suit came from Florida resident John Kenney, also filed in May 2024, pressing the same constitutional argument. Then on November 24, 2025, Justin Palmore of California filed a third. Three plaintiffs, three cases, one core complaint about residency rules.

Here’s what makes this sting: none of the three were among the 97 businesses that actually submitted applications after Rhode Island opened its licensing window late in 2024. The people who didn’t apply are the ones who stopped everyone else.

Rhode Island’s Cannabis Act, passed by lawmakers in 2022, called for 24 new retail stores to be licensed across the state. Six slots were reserved for social equity applicants. Another six were earmarked for worker-owned cooperatives. Out-of-state investors and ownership are permitted under the law, but it’s the residency requirement attached to the license holder specifically that drew the constitutional fire.

The state divided retail licenses across six geographic zones, and because not every zone received an application for every license type, the pool narrowed from a possible 24 down to 20.

Judge DuBose didn’t hold back in her ruling. “Knowing the Act was facing legal challenges… CCC continued forward with its plan to implement the Act and its licensing scheme,” she wrote. That’s the part that’s going to sting for the commission. They knew the suits were out there. They ran the process anyway.

The commission’s spokesperson, Charon Rose, addressed the ruling Friday. “At this time, the commission is not in a position to provide a definitive timeline,” Rose said. “Additional guidance will be provided as it becomes available.”

That’s not nothing, but it isn’t much either. The 97 businesses sitting in limbo as of December 29, 2025 don’t have a next step, a new date, or any clear signal about when this gets resolved. For a licensing program that was supposed to be open and running well before the end of 2025, the injunction represents a significant setback, and the commission’s careful language won’t make that easier to absorb.

For readers tracking parallel developments in California, the Jensen litigation is worth watching. She’s sued in multiple states over the same residency issue, and that legal strategy could hit other state licensing frameworks that haven’t been tested yet.

Marijuana Moment was among the first to report Wednesday’s injunction. The ruling leaves Rhode Island’s retail expansion on hold indefinitely, with no clear date for when the commission can resume its review, and 97 applicants who can’t do anything but wait.