While the cannabis Industry in Massachusetts has been plagued by dispensary closings due to oversupply and steep pricing reductions, dispensaries in Boston’s downtown neighborhoods are holding their own.

In the Back Bay, Downtown, Fenway, South End and West End there are currently 11 total cannabis retailers. Downtown has the most at six, with Back Bay having the second most at two.

Across the Back Bay, South End, Downtown and Fenway only two Marijuana retailers have closed down, according to the mayor’s press office. One in the Fenway and another in Downtown.

The downtown closure, formerly Cannabist, at 21 Milk Street closed in October, 2024. According to the city’s website, the Boston Cannabis Board heard a presentation last May from the multi state operator (MSO) Curaleaf to reopen a dispensary at the address.

In those same neighborhoods six new retailers are expected to open with three in Back Bay, and one each in Downtown, Fenway and South End, according to the mayor’s press office.

AYR Wellness, another MSO that has retail locations throughout Massachusetts including one on Boylston Street announced that it was restructuring in October and is expected to shutter all of its Commonwealth operations by the end of the year.

Massachusetts’ regulatory arm, the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC), is considering a freeze on cultivation licenses in hopes that it would bring stabilization the market.

In a statement to the Boston Guardian, CCC Commissioner Kimberly Roy said that any decision made on a freeze would come after they held a public meeting to gather input from licensees, applicants and industry stakeholders.

“While a freeze on canopy production is a significant step to consider, the Commissioners are actively looking at multiple ways to help the industry,” added Commission Chair Shannon O’Brien. “Commissioners are working on red tape removal to reduce costly overregulation that does not impact public safety, but which will hopefully improve economic bottom line for all licensees.”

Victor Chiang, cofounder of the cannabis retailer Redi operating in Newton and Natick and is expecting to open the newest location in the Fenway, says that if the license freeze were to go through, it would be a year or two until retailers began seeing notable change in pricing.

What’s more likely, he believes, is that smaller operators will soon begin to sell their operations and others closing down entirely which, considering the fact that cannabis retailers aren’t able file for bankruptcy, would be devastating.

“I would estimate maybe a quarter of us are profitable. And a large part of that is because of the pricing, both at the wholesale level and at the retail level,” Chiang said. “I think there is a push from a number of operators in the space to say ‘yeah, we should be controlling canopy’ which is to therefore limit supply, which hopefully will drive some pricing up.”

The issue isn’t unique to Massachusetts; several states who have legalized marijuana have seen similar supply overabundance. Geof Rellinger, who has previously attempted to open his own dispensary in the city, says that the lowered prices overwhelmingly harm smaller retail outfits who got into the business at the earliest stages.

“It’s particularly unsustainable for those businesses which have been around for a couple of years or since kind of the beginnings of this process because those organizations are paying extremely exorbitant rents and have made commitments to the community,” said Rellinger, “financial commitments, which become very difficult to maintain when one is no longer seeing profitability.”

Rellinger predicts that those vertically integrated businesses that are able to control their own supply are the ones that will better be able to weather the storm.