Delaware’s 15 Lottery Winners Still Have No Retail Stores

Delaware drew 15 open-retail marijuana winners on December 19, 2024, and as of early September 2026 none of those shops had opened. Adult-use sales have run since August 1, 2025, entirely through converted medical dispensaries.

Those 13 conversion shops rang up $58.5 million in recreational sales from launch through the September 2026 tally, while the lottery tickets sat in the supplemental pile. Winning the drawing was the easy part.

529 Applicants for 15 Open Retail Licenses

The Office of the Marijuana Commissioner held a separate public drawing for the open-retail class because the pile was too big to fold into the October 24, 2024 lottery. The office had taken 1,271 paid applications for 125 licenses across 11 classes. After a minimum-standards review, 1,256 went into the drawings. Open retail alone sent 529 eligible files after 15 slots, about 35 applications per license.

The December drawing split those 15 slots by county, the same way the rest of the program is built. New Castle County got 7 licenses on 210 eligible applications. Kent County got 3 on 151. Sussex County got 5 on 168. The office later posted the selected applicants for open retail licenses and told them to start the supplemental file that leads to a conditional license.

THE DECEMBER 19 OPEN-RETAIL DRAWING

A lottery number was not a license. The office said the picks were non-transferable, and that only an active license can be moved. Social equity licenses, a separate track of 15 retail slots drawn in October, also carry a three-year hold on transfers. Conditional holders then had to clear FBI checks, prove ownership, lock a site, and pass an inspection.

Converted Medical Shops Sold $58.5 Million Alone

Medical compassion centers did not wait on that gauntlet. They paid a $100,000 conversion fee per retail shop and opened adult-use counters on August 1, 2025, more than two years after possession became legal on April 23, 2023. For a full year they had the recreational floor to themselves.

The office’s own first-month release put $7,354,293 in first-month sales. Officials later put the first year at $53.4 million, with $8 million in tax at the 15% rate. By September 2026 the running total since launch was $58.5 million and $8.8 million in tax. Joshua Sanderlin, sworn as marijuana commissioner in May 2025, said sales had more than doubled from the medical-only year before adult use began.

THE ADULT-USE TILL

• First month: $7,354,293 in recreational sales after the August 1, 2025 opening.
• First year: $53.4 million in sales and $8 million in tax, per the office’s anniversary figures.
• Through September 2026: $58.5 million in sales since launch and $8.8 million in tax, still from the 13 conversion shops.
• 2023 forecast: $281 million in annual sales and $42 million in tax, the mark first commissioner Robert Coupe set after legalization, which Sanderlin has called too high.

Buyers already knew the drive to Maryland and New Jersey from the two-year wait, and those shelves are cheaper. Delaware’s first-year take is a fraction of Coupe’s old annual number, and every dollar of it went through shops that never stood in the December line.

Empty Storefronts After a Year of County Limits

Lawmakers left counties and towns wide room to decide where a shop could sit. Many towns banned them outright. Sussex County piled on buffers that licensees treated as a shutdown in all but name, including distances from churches, schools, and treatment sites that ate commercial strips whole.

Deputy commissioner Paul Hyland said in early September 2026 that none of the 30 authorized retail-only stores, the 15 open-retail picks plus 15 social-equity retail licenses, had opened. He put the stall on zoning, especially in Sussex, and on financing for the 16 prospective retailers that had actually received conditional licenses. Several of the 30 never got that far.

“It’s slower than we would have liked. But the process is working well,” Hyland said. “The framework is strong.”

Sanderlin had told lawmakers in the spring that five of those 16 could open by the end of June 2026. They did not. He later said several licensees had sites and had filed zoning-verification requests with the counties. Finding a legal door still took longer than drawing a ping-pong ball.

Why Lawmakers Overrode Meyer on Senate Bill 75

Senate Bill 75, sponsored by Sen. Trey Paradee and Rep. Ed Osienski, was written to put a floor under those fights. It sets the limits counties may impose on stores and says those limits preempt existing and future county ordinances.

Under the act, a county may bar a retail shop in a commercial or industrial zone only within a half mile of another retail marijuana store, or within 500 feet of a place of worship, school, licensed child care, residential treatment facility, park, or library. Indoor, fully enclosed grows in agricultural or industrial zones may not be banned. Conversion shops must be allowed to keep operating as a nonconforming use, and counties must allow minimum hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.

THE SB 75 CLOCK

1. March 20, 2025: Paradee and Osienski introduce the bill in the 153rd General Assembly.
2. August 28, 2025: Gov. Matt Meyer vetoes it, arguing the state should not strip county land-use power, and floats sending localities 4.5% of the 15% marijuana tax.
3. January 28, 2026: The Senate overrides the veto, 14-6, with one not voting.
4. July 1, 2026: The House overrides 25-16 in the early hours of the last session day, and the bill is enacted.

Osienski, the House majority whip, had spent a year watching counties write rules that left lottery winners paying rent on rooms they could not occupy. His statement on the Senate Bill 75 override put the point in one line.

It establishes a reasonable statewide floor so that state-issued licenses have a realistic path to existence. That is all Senate Bill 75 is about: Finishing the job. It is about preventing local zoning from being used as a de facto ban on a legal state-authorized industry.

Ed Osienski, House Majority Whip, statement on the July 1, 2026 veto override

Paradee had warned after the veto that the delay would do irreparable harm to small operators who had already won the lottery. Sussex County officials called the override another overreach from Dover. The statute does not force a town to host a shop, and it does not write anyone a lease. It only stops a county from using zoning as a second veto on a state license.

Galaxy Television Lost Its Lottery Slot in September

Even a winning number died in the next file. Galaxy Television, LLC was selected in the December open-retail drawing and turned in a supplemental application on February 7, 2025. The company said it then received a conditional license and 18 months to find a site. On September 29, 2025, the office denied the application.

The denial cited three points: an undisclosed conviction for obstructing a judiciary, Congress, legislature, or commission, which the office treated as a disqualifying crime of moral turpitude, and a failure to disclose that two of the applicant’s licenses had been revoked in Missouri. Galaxy appealed. The Marijuana Appeals Commission, in an order dated January 8, 2026, found there was no dispute that Galaxy had never held an active license of the kind the transfer rules describe, and it affirmed the denial.

The drawing put a name on a short list. The background file took it off. That gap, between a lottery email and a license that can actually sell, is where several of the 15 disappeared from the opening calendar.

What the Social Equity Contracts Cost

Social equity was supposed to be the other door. Qualifying owners, people with a past marijuana conviction, a family member who had one, or five years in a disproportionately impacted area, paid a $1,000 application fee and competed for reserved slots, including 15 retail licenses. Sanderlin’s office later said it had to deny 23 conditional licenses after tying them to Cannabis Business Advisors, an Arizona firm run by investor Michael Halow.

The office described the contracts as built so a takeover was inevitable. Georgetown resident Jacqueline Lacy, who had applied on the equity track after a postcard that looked to her like state help, was among the applicants who then had to appeal. Sanderlin called the pattern the worst form of predatory dealing in the file, paying for applications in bulk so the firm could control whatever numbers came up.

THE CONTRACT TERMS OMC FLAGGED

• Until first sale: $10,000 a month from the day the license is issued until the shop sells its first gram.
• First six months open: $50,000 a month, then $75,000 a month after that.
• Walking away: a $1 million break-up fee to end the relationship.

The state’s own Social Equity Financial Assistance grants, launched in September 2025, do not come close to those invoices. Officials said nine grants totaling more than $1 million had been approved by the first anniversary, with $341,250 already sent. The retailer award is $65,000. That is a build-out stamp, not a build-out. Hyland still listed financing as a hard stop for many of the 16 conditional retailers.

By August 2026 the office counted 38 active licenses across retail, cultivation, manufacturing, and testing, most of that weight still on the old medical operators. Four cultivation licensees were running. Only one of 20 social-equity cultivation licensees was active, according to OMC spokeswoman Keila Montalvo.

An 18-Month Clock With No New Shop Open

OMC rules give a conditional licensee 18 months to become operational after the conditional grant, including a physical site. Clocks started on a rolling basis through 2025, which puts the first wave up against late 2026. The office also began letting licensees apply to move a county assignment if they could show a failed hunt at home and a legal site somewhere else, a workaround after the SB 75 veto and before the override.

Hyland said in early September 2026 that Mint Cannabis, near Georgetown in Sussex County, should open that month, which would make it the first lottery retailer on a floor the conversion shops have had since August 2025. Sanderlin had previewed a Georgetown storefront by the end of summer. As of that early-September account, the ribbon was still uncut.

The December 19 drawing did what a lottery does. It picked 15 names at random from 529 files and called the process fair. Twenty-one months later the converted medical shops still held every recreational dollar, and the winners were still trying to turn a ping-pong ball into a door that zoning, capital, and a background file would let them open.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on Delaware’s adult-use marijuana licensing and sales figures. It is informational only and is not legal, licensing, or business advice, and it is not a recommendation to apply for, buy, sell, or finance a marijuana license. Anyone considering a cannabis business, a license transfer, or a related investment should consult a Delaware-licensed attorney and a qualified accountant before acting. License counts, opening dates, and sales totals reflect the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner and other public records cited here as of the dates on those records and can change as conditional licenses convert, lapse, or are denied.