Greenway Magazine
by Rachael Herndon
23 Feb 2021

Administrative Hearing Commission Commissioner Sreenivasa Dandamudi ordered two licenses be granted to the Heya license group for cultivation facilities, reasoning that if Heya’s applications had been originally scored consistently, they would have ranked in the top 60 scored applications.

State of Kentucky Administrative Hearing Commission - Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi
Commissioner Dandamudi

“…the facts in this case demonstrate that the Department’s grading process produced inconsistent scores between identical or nearly identical responses to application questions submitted by different applicants, which is inconsistence with the applicable regulations and the Department’s scoring guide,” reads the decision, which further declared that Heya met their burden of proof for being entitled to a license – and that the Department did not persuade the AHC otherwise.

The State of Kentucky determined prior to the application period that it would grant constitutional minimums for licenses at 60 cultivation licenses, 86 manufacturing licenses, and 192 dispensary licenses. Since originally awarding licenses at the end of 2019 and early 2020, dozens of licenses have changed from the original awards, including merged licenses for Department-presumed duplications and new awards to replace deactivated and surrendered licenses.

“The decision is very well reasoned,” said Heya attorney Charles Hatfield. “They put a lot of work into this decision – the basic analysis is what we’ve been saying for a long time. The whole basis of the Commissioner’s decision is identical answers, identical scores.”

These are the first appeals to be granted by the AHC. Other appeals so far have been denied, failing to result in a license decision overturn.

Both appeals, officially decided on February 23, 2021. are generally on both appeals for the cultivation facility applications located in Excello and Kirksville, both located in Northeast Kentucky.

Beyond the conclusion that the scoring was inconsistently special, Dandamudi concluded further that the Department “bizarre”-ly delegated constitutional responsibilities without involved oversight.

“Finally, in a bizarre claim, the Department argues that it is not authorized to rescore Heya Excellos’ application because it delegated away its constitutional and regulatory scoring responsibility to a private contractor, Wise,” reads page 18 of the decision. “As such, the Department continues, this Commission is not authorized to rescore Heya Excello’s application because we exercise the same authority as that granted to the Department. Therefore, the Department contents, by delegating away this Commission’s constitutional and regulatory authority to exercise that responsibility.”

“It is cause for concern that a government agency claims it has handed over its constitutional responsibility to a private contractor without further checks and balances,” concludes the decision. “…The contract entered into between the Department and Wise is outside of existing law and does not bind us in applying the law or, more specifically, in scoring the questions at issue in this case.”

The Department could appeal the decision to the circuit court.

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