Page 80 - BusinessWest August 18, 2021

A Front-row Seat
Bruce Stebbins Moves from Gaming to the Front Lines of Cannabis
By George O’Brien
Bruce Stebbins remembers the time dur- ing 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 conversa- tions 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 introduc- tion 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.
Indeed, he would eventually trade his seat on
the gaming board for one on the Cannabis Con- trol Commission. And that puts him in a unique position.
Indeed, he’s able to talk firsthand (as no one
how it came about, and what he projects for a cannabis industry that is already having a pro- found impact on the state — nearly $2 billion in sales since the first retail establishments opened
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.”
else can, because no one else has sat on both commissions) about these two huge additions to the state’s landscape — and its business commu- nity. 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,
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
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80 AUGUST 18, 2021
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