Cannabis License Watch

Monitor state cannabis business license registries from official regulator open data. Each scheduled run tells you what changed since the last run: new licenses, status changes, and licenses expiring soon—so vendors (packaging, compliance software, insurance, equipment, labs) can reach licensed businesses at the right time.

Supported states

State	Source	Status
CA	California DCC public ExportAll registry (same feed as search.cannabis.ca.gov)	Verified
NY	NYS Open Data — Current OCM Licenses (jskf-tt3q)	Verified
OR	Oregon Open Data — OLCC Cannabis Business Licenses (q32u-cmam)	Verified
CT	Connecticut Open Data — Licensed cannabis retail locations (42yd-3x3d)	Verified
WA	Washington Open Data — WSLCB Cannabis Renewal licensees (brpd-b6zd)	Verified
MA	Massachusetts CCC open data — public license details (l_licenses_all_details_public.json)	Verified
CO, MI, IL, NJ, MD, MO	Official regulator portals (see REPORT.md)	Researched; no stable public bulk feed verified yet in this Actor

We only ingest regulator-published open data. We do not include owner names, personal emails, personal phone numbers, or street addresses in output.

Input

Field	Description
states	State codes to monitor (e.g. ["CA"])
licenseTypes	Optional allow-list (exact match)
statuses	Optional allow-list (e.g. ["Active"])
counties / cities	Optional geographic filters
changeTypes	new, status_change, expiring (when emitAll is false)
expiringWithinDays	Window for expiring alerts (default 30)
maxResults	Cap rows pushed per run (0 = unlimited); licenses over the cap stay pending until a later run emits them
emitAll	If true, push all matching licenses, not just deltas
emitExistingOnFirstRun	Default false: first run saves a baseline snapshot and emits nothing (no pay-per-event charge for ~20k existing licenses). Set true to emit existing licenses as new on the first run

Example:

{
  "states": ["CA"],
  "statuses": ["Active"],
  "changeTypes": ["new", "status_change", "expiring"],
  "expiringWithinDays": 30,
  "maxResults": 20,
  "emitAll": false
}

Output

Each dataset row:

• state, licenseNumber, licenseType, status
• businessLegalName, dba, county, city
• issueDate, expirationDate
• sourceUrl, changeType, previousStatus (when status changed)

Example (from a local test run; values reflect the registry at run time):

{
  "state": "CA",
  "licenseNumber": "C10-0000123-LIC",
  "licenseType": "Commercial - Retailer",
  "status": "Active",
  "businessLegalName": "Example Farms LLC",
  "dba": "Example Retail",
  "county": "Los Angeles",
  "city": "Los Angeles",
  "issueDate": "2020-03-15",
  "expirationDate": "2026-03-14",
  "sourceUrl": "https://fa-dcc-pub-vip-cann-ww-p-001.azurewebsites.net/api/ExportAll?searchQuery=",
  "changeType": "new",
  "previousStatus": null
}

Pricing

$2.50 per 1,000 licenses returned, plus $0.003 per run. Platform usage is included. The first run saves a baseline and returns nothing (unless you turn on emitting existing licenses), so a daily California run with a few dozen changes typically costs cents.

Sample run vs. monitoring

The example input in Console returns up to 10 current matching records so you can see the output right away ("Emit all matches" on, max results 10). For a scheduled monitor, turn "Emit all matches" off and clear the max-results limit: each run then returns only records that are new or changed since the previous run, so you pay only for what's new.

Schedule on Apify

1. Deploy this Actor to your Apify account (Store or private).
2. Open Schedules → Create new schedule.
3. Choose the Actor, paste your input JSON, set cadence (e.g. daily after regulators update).
4. Send results to webhook, dataset, or your CRM.

State between runs is kept in the Actor key-value store cannabis-license-watch-state.

Source attribution

• California: Data from the California Department of Cannabis Control public license export API. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the State of California. Verify critical compliance decisions against official DCC records.

Local run

cd cannabis-license-watch
npm install
APIFY_LOCAL_STORAGE_DIR=./storage apify run -p --input-file=INPUT.json
# or:
APIFY_LOCAL_STORAGE_DIR=./storage node src/main.js

Requires Node.js 20+. First run with emitAll: false emits new/changed/expiring rows; a second run with the same input should emit zero delta rows if the registry unchanged.