Council Expands Warwick Retail Marijuana Zoning – WarwickPost.com

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WARWICK, RI — The Rhode Island Cannabis Act places Warwick within Zone 4 of six state-allowed retail marijuana sales zones, governed by local zoning, which the City Council expanded Monday.
Zone 4 also includes East Greenwich, North Kingstown and Cranston.
Marijuana retail entrepreneurs won’t get to take immediate advantage of the opportunity to propose locations within the newly accessible general business zones outside the Rte. 2 (Bald Hill Road) corridor. Retail applications have been in limbo state-wide since April 9.
In May 2025, the state Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) announced it would approve 24 licenses for recreational retail  marijuana sales, split equally among the six zones, according to FoleyHoag.com. In September 2025, the CCC opened applications for the licenses, but a suit by three plaintiffs protesting the resident-favored application requirements resulted in a court-ordered preliminary injunction halting the process April 9.
“The judge concluded that the plaintiffs had established a likelihood of success on their claim that the residency provisions in the state’s licensing regime could not survive constitutional scrutiny under the Supreme Court’s dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence,” according to a summary of the ruling filed in federal court.
So far, only two Warwick businesses are licensed to sell retail marijuana under a lottery system then administered by the Department of Business Management.
There are eight cannabis compassion centers in Rhode Island, authorized under the Thomas Slater Marijuana Act in 2006.
In 2022, when Rhode Island legalized adult-use cannabis, the state authorized five licensed medical marijuana compassion centers to operate using hybrid medical/retail sales licenses, allowing them to sell both medical and adult use marijuana products in retail settings, according to the Governor’s office. One of those compassion centers was RISE Warwick, 444 Quaker Lane.
In 2023, a second business, Solar Cannabis,  opened at 65 Meadow St. in Warwick selling retail marijuana, according to a report from Providence Business News. Cannabis Business Times reported the company won a lottery for a hybrid medical-retail cannabis license in Oct. 2021.
Once the legal challenges to the licensing process are remedied, applicants will have more General Business zoned area to choose from in Warwick. Warwick City Planner Tom Kravitz said the city is likely to wind up with another two retail marijuana businesses at most once permitting opens again.
“Right now we have not issued any permits,” said CCC Chief of Public Affairs Charon Rose.
During the time CCC was accepting applications for retail marijuana sales, CCC received 98 applications, which are posted to the CCC site. About 20 of applications have redacted site information. Only 24 licenses will be granted by the state.
Proposed Warwick businesses include:

• Buddy’s Dispensary, Inc., 319 Bald Hill Road, Warwick, RI
• CHRI LLC, 1020 Bald Hill Rd, Unit G, Warwick, RI
• Green Lightning, LLC, 3126 Post Road, Warwick, RI
• Green Rhode, LLC, 3116 Post Road, Warwick, RI
• GTRI LLC, 1020 Bald Hill Rd, Unit E, Warwick, RI
• HHRI LLC, 1020 Bald Hill Rd, Unit F, Warwick, RI
• Narragansett Naturals LLC, 719 Bald Hill Rd, Unit 2, Warwick, RI
• SBRI LLC, 1020 Bald Hill Rd, Unit C, Warwick, RI
• VVRI LLC, 1020 Bald Hill Rd, Unit D, Warwick, RI

Nearby, in and around Coventry, there are four proposed sites:
Green Door Apothecary, LLC, 737 Centre of New England Blvd, West Greenwich
Ocean State Dispensary, 752 Center of New England Blvd., West Greenwich, RI
Machiavelli Holdings LLC, 35 Sandy Bottom Road, Coventry, RI (Office address: 3970 Post Road, Warwick)
Permaculture Cooperative Inc., 1080 Tiogue Ave., Coventry, RI
Rose said the status of the applications filed so far remains to be seen.

Council Expands Retail Marijuana Business Zoning Outside Rte. 2

Kravitz told Council members Monday night that the Planning Board’s recommendation was to keep the status quo by rejecting the proposed amendment, submitted by Councilmen Anthony Sinapi, Vinny Gebhart and Bryan Nappa, which sought to remove the ability to place retail marijuana in Light Industrial and General Industrial zones via Special Use Permit and allow it within General Business (GB) zones with a footnote: “Allowed only within selected areas of GB zone district along Rte. 2 between and including the intersections of West Natick Road and Route 2, and Route 3 / Cowesett Road and Route 2.”

As of Monday, City zoning allowed special use permits for retail sales of marijuana in Light Industrial and General Industrial zones outside the Rte. 2 corridor. Applicants may pursue a special use permit through the planning board under a unified development review, asking the planning board act as the zoning board. Or, he said, they can simply apply through the zoning board.
Nappa said the amendment was in response to a special use permit for a Light Industrial zone placement of retail marijuana sales near a neighborhood and a day care center. While the application was reviewed by the Zoning Board, members expressed the desire to limit retail marijuana to the busier Rte. 2 corridor, and away from neighborhoods.
Gebhart pointed out retail marijuana is allowed without special permit on Rte. 2. “That’s the fast pass,” Gebhart said. The proposed change would also allow General Business Zone retail marijuana locations with a special permit.
Gebhart made a motion amending the proposal to maintain current special use permits in Light Industrial and General Industrial zones and to also allow special use permits within General Business zones. There would be no change to the footnote allowing retail marijuana by right along Rte. 2.
Gebhart’s amendment was seconded by Councilman Bryan Nappa, then passed 6-3 with Councilmen Ed Ladouceur, Bill Muto, and Jeremy Rix voting “no”.
The amended resolution proceeded, and Ladoceur motioned for unfavorable action against the amended proposal, with Muto seconding. The unfavorable action motion failed 6-3 with Ladoceur, Rix, and Kirby voting “yes.”
Next, Gebhart made a motion for favorable action on the proposal with his change, with Nappa seconding it. That motion passed 6-3 with Ladoceur, Muto and Rix voting, “no.”
Gebhart explained his reasoning behind the amendment.
“This puts back in the court of the entrepreneur or the business owner, trying to launch this, to dig through the vacant parcels across the city and try to identify the needle in a haystack that might actually be a good location in a general business zone,” Gebhart said.
“I mean, there’s all these requirements on the state level, and then what we have in our own general zoning and then the high bar of going to the zoning department, the Zoning Board, and trying to get a special use permit in order to open it in a particular place,” he said, ‘We shouldn’t be the ones identifying these parcels. We kind of set the playing field and let people invest where they want to.”
Monday’s City Council meeting was streamed in two parts:
Monday, April 27 City Council, Part 1
Monday, April 27 City Council, Part 2
 

Author: Rob Borkowski

Rob has worked as reporter and editor for several publications, including The Kent County Daily Times and Coventry Courier, before working for Gatehouse in MA then moving home with Patch Media. Now he's publisher and editor of WarwickPost.com. Contact him at editor@warwickpost.com with tips, press releases, advertising inquiries, and concerns.

Rob has worked as reporter and editor for several publications, including The Kent County Daily Times and Coventry Courier, before working for Gatehouse in MA then moving home with Patch Media. Now he's publisher and editor of WarwickPost.com. Contact him at editor@warwickpost.com with tips, press releases, advertising inquiries, and concerns.
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