Competition is stiff for cannabis business licenses in Arkansas, numbers released by the state Medical Marijuana Commission reveal.

At a meeting Monday, the MMC made public the number of license applications it received by the Sept. 18 deadline, broken down by the eight zones it divides Arkansas into, as well as by county.

Document: Arkansas Medical Marijuana Dispensary Zones View

In total the commission received 95 applications for cultivation center licenses and 228 for dispensary licenses. It will award up to five cultivation licenses statewide and 32 dispensary licenses, four in each zone.

There were seven cultivation applications and 16 dispensary applications for licenses to operate in Zone 8, which contains 14 Southwest Arkansas counties including Miller.

Three cultivation centers and six dispensaries applied for licenses to operate in Miller County.

Pulaski County, which contains Little Rock, had the most applications for dispensaries at 26. Jefferson County, which contains Pine Bluff, had 13 applications for cultivation centers, the most for any county.

No one applied for a license to operate either type of business in Arkansas, Ashley, Calhoun, Cleveland, Hempstead, Lafayette, Lawrence, Little River, Logan, Newton, Perry or Randolph County.

Those seeking cultivation licenses paid a $15,000 application fee, and dispensary applicants paid $7,500. Each license application is about 1,000 pages long, according to an MMC spokesman.

To eliminate favoritism, before the commission can evaluate an application, legal staff must redact any information that could identify the applicant. The process is expected to take months.

At Monday's meeting the MMC said it should begin receiving redacted applications by Dec. 15 but that date could be pushed back because of the volume of work involved, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette report.

The Texarkana, Ark., Board of Directors voted unanimously in July to adopt a business-licensing structure. Cultivation centers will pay the city an initial business license fee of $50,000 and thereafter $50,000 a year for renewal. Dispensaries will pay $7,500 for an initial license and $11,250 for renewal.

The board also changed the city zoning ordinance regarding medical marijuana businesses, adding relevant definitions, adopting state restrictions on the businesses' signage and defining which zones they may operate in.

Numbers of license applications received, by

Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission zone and county:

CULTIVATION (95) DISPENSARY (228)

ZONE 1 10 33

Benton 0 11

Carroll 2 5

Madison 1 0

Washington 7 17

ZONE 2 4 18

Baxter 0 2

Boone 0 3

Cleburne 0 3

Fulton 0 1

Izard 1 2

Marion 0 1

Newton 0 0

Searcy 1 0

Stone 0 3

Van Buren 2 3

ZONE 3 25 44

Clay 1 1

Craighead 1 10

Crittenden 2 15

Cross 0 1

Greene 0 1

Independence 2 3

Jackson 8 4

Lawrence 0 0

Mississippi 1 2

Poinsett 1 0

Randolph 0 0

Sharp 2 3

St. Francis 4 2

Woodruff 3 2

ZONE 4 8 24

Conway 1 2

Crawford 1 3

Franklin 1 0

Johnson 1 3

Logan 0 0

Pope 1 4

Sebastian 3 11

Yell 0 1

ZONE 5 13 41

Faulkner 0 12

Lonoke 2 3

Pulaski 9 26

White 2 0

ZONE 6 6 34

Garland 3 22

Grant 0 1

Hot Spring 1 2

Montgomery 1 1

Perry 0 0

Polk 0 2

Saline 1 5

Scott 0 1

ZONE 7 22 18

Arkansas 0 0

Ashley 0 0

Bradley 0 1

Chicot 1 4

Cleveland 0 0

Desha 0 2

Drew 1 0

Jefferson 13 8

Lee 2 0

Lincoln 1 0

Monroe 2 0

Phillips 2 2

Prairie 0 1

ZONE 8 7 16

Calhoun 0 0

Clark 0 2

Columbia 0 1

Dallas 1 0

Hempstead 0 0

Howard 0 1

Lafayette 0 0

Little River 0 0

Miller 3 6

Nevada 1 1

Ouachita 0 1

Pike 0 1

Sevier 1 1

Union 1 2

Source: Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission