Bruce Stebbins Moves from Gaming to the Front Lines of Cannabis

A Front-row Seat

Bruce Stebbins remembers the time during his tenure on the Massachusetts Gaming Commission when that body was essentially subleasing some of its space on Federal Street in Boston to the recently formed Cannabis Control Commission (CCC), charged with overseeing an industry then — and in most all ways still — in its infancy.

While the two entities had separate quarters, the commissions and their staffs would cross paths often, he said, adding that there were lively discussions and some sharing of ideas between the two very different worlds.

“I was regularly running into my counterparts on their commission and staff while waiting for the elevator,” he recalled. “We actually had a lot of staff from our team having a lot of conversations with staff from their team, in part out of convenience — they were on the same floor. There was a lot of information going back and forth on the staff level … and it was the introduction of that new industry that was really exciting for me.”

Little could he have known at that time, but Stebbins, a former Western Mass. resident known to many in this region for his work with a host of economic-development-related agencies, would soon be on the front lines of that new industry.

Bruce Stebbins

“We have 267 cannabis establishments open in Massachusetts, most of them on the retail side. Unlike gaming, which had a limited number of licenses, there are no limits on the number of cannabis licenses; it’s an interesting structure because there’s been an effort to create opportunities for a local entrepreneur as well as larger operators who have significant experience in other states.”

Indeed, he would eventually trade his seat on the gaming board for one on the Cannabis Control Commission. And that puts him in a unique position.

Indeed, he’s able to talk firsthand (as no one else can, because no one else has sat on both commissions) about these two huge additions to the state’s landscape — and its business community. And he did just that in a lengthy interview with BusinessWest, during which he did a little comparing and contrasting of the two industries. But mostly he talked about his latest assignment, how it came about, and what he projects for a cannabis industry that is already having a profound impact on the state — nearly $2 billion in sales since the first retail establishments opened in 2018 — and, especially, individual cities and towns.

He said the industries are similar in that they are bringing millions of dollars in tax revenue to the state and adding thousands of jobs as well, but also different in some ways. There are only three casinos, obviously, while there are now nearly 300 cannabis-related operations doing business in the state. The casinos are owned and operated by huge international corporations, while the cannabis ventures come in all sizes, from huge, multi-state operations to smaller entrepreneurial enterprises.

And while the resort casinos have changed the landscape in Springfield, Everett, and Plainfield, the cannabis industry is reshaping dozens of smaller communities and bringing new life to idle real estate across the state (more on that later).

Named to the board in January, Stebbins said he’s still learning about the burgeoning cannabis industry in Massachusetts, and there is much to learn.

His education involves venturing out and seeing various operations in person, he said, and also listening to a large and intriguing mix of activists, stakeholders, physicians, parents, and those who have been in the industry, including some who have come to Massachusetts from other states that had legalized cannabis earlier, such as Colorado and Washington.

Overall, while it’s difficult to say how large and impactful the cannabis industry can become in the Bay State, he said there are essentially “no limits” on either the number of licenses or the bearing of this sector on the economy or individual cities and towns.

“We have 267 cannabis establishments open in Massachusetts, most of them on the retail side,” he noted. “Unlike gaming, which had a limited number of licenses, there are no limits on the number of cannabis licenses; it’s an interesting structure because there’s been an effort to create opportunities for a local entrepreneur as well as larger operators who have significant experience in other states.”

For this issue and its focus on the cannabis industry, BusinessWest talked with Stebbins about what he can see from his front-row seat, what he’s learning, and what he projects for an industry that is off to a fast start and shows no signs of slowing down.

 

On a Roll

When asked about how he wound up trading his seat on one commission for the other, Stebbins started by talking about the positions that became available on the CCC and his decision to apply for one of them.

Key to that decision is the why. As with the Gaming Commission, he was drawn to this board — and the cannabis industry — because of its broad implications for economic development within the Commonwealth.

“Part of my passion has been fueled by the opportunity to work with this new industry coming into Massachusetts,” he noted. “Similar to my interest in the gaming work that I did, I was looking for the economic-development aspects of this [cannabis] industry, whether it’s investment, jobs, small-business opportunity … I certainly saw that both gaming and the introduction of the cannabis industry was going to offer those opportunities. That’s where my passion lay with gaming, and it’s where it lies with cannabis as well.”

Surveying the scene in the Commonwealth, he said cannabis has come a long way in a short time in Massachusetts.

“I was impressed with the work of the commission and the staff … from the time the ballot question passed to the statute to opening the first retail, it was about two years; that’s very aggressive,” he said, adding that the industry is still ascending, with no real indication of just how high it can go.

“Right now, a big part of the agenda of our meetings is looking at renewals, final licenses for applicants, and also a healthy number of provisional-license applications that are coming through the door,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be a slowing down of activity when it comes to people pursuing a license and people taking the final steps to opening their doors.”

Elaborating, he said there are a number of ways to measure the impact of this industry, with the number of licenses and the volume of sales being only a few of them.

Others include the positive impact on the real-estate market, with cannabis operations bringing a number of idle or underutilized properties — from retail storefronts to former paper and textile mills — back to productive life, with the promise of more at venues that include the massive former JCPenney property at the Eastfield Mall.

“Being from Western Mass., being from Springfield, and knowing Holyoke, I think one of the obvious returns has been investment in brick and mortar, whether it’s been an old mill building as a cultivation-and-grow facility to some of the new retail facilities that you see popping up,” Stebbins said. “There have been many healthy examples of how this has led to increased investment in communities that might have been struggling with underutilized properties that weren’t helping out the tax rolls.”

He cited examples of such dynamic reuse in Holyoke, Sturbridge, Southbridge, and several other communities, while noting that behind each of those walls are jobs that didn’t exist three years ago.

One of the industry’s best qualities, he went on, is the opportunities it offers to different constituencies, when it comes to both jobs and entrepreneurship — within the industry and supporting it as well.

“The cannabis statute obviously wanted to a heavy emphasis on hiring those who were disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs,” he explained. “We are in the middle of our application phase for our social-equity program, which gives individuals from those neighborhoods an opportunity to explore being an entrepreneur in this industry, looking at a management track, looking at an entry-level job track, as well as ancillary business; maybe you don’t want to actually be a cannabis retailer, but you might be an electrician, and what job opportunities and business opportunities are out there because of this industry?”

Stebbins acknowledged there are certainly some barriers to entering this industry, especially when it comes to capital and access to it, and he lauded the CCC and the Legislature for efforts to create loan funds — some of them from revenues generated by the industry — and other programs to ease access and remove some of those barriers.

“Some great work has been done, and we’re not taking our eye off the focus of making sure those opportunities are available for social-equity applicants,” he said.

These qualities separate the cannabis industry from gaming in some respects, he went on, adding that, while both have created jobs, the cannabis sector has created more opportunities in more regions and in more cities and towns — and also more types of opportunities.

“Cannabis has created a wide variety of jobs — testing jobs, cultivation jobs, retail jobs, product-manufacturing jobs,” he said. “And there’s also the fact that the industry has the ability to take root across the Commonwealth and not just in specific regions or specific, identified communities.”

 

Joint Ventures

Reflecting on the past several years, Stebbins said he’s had a remarkable opportunity — one that has placed him on the front lines in the development and maturation of not just one new industry within the Commonwealth, but two of them.

It’s been a rewarding experience — and a learning experience — on many levels, he said, adding quickly that he has a great deal of energy and passion when it comes to finding solutions and helping new businesses grow, reach their full potential, and be successful.

That’s true of both sectors, but especially his latest assignment — a cannabis sector that has certainly taken root, both literally and figuratively, but will inevitably suffer growing pains. u

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]