As Massachusetts regulators prepared to vote on final licenses for marijuana retail shops, Gov. Charlie Baker dismissed concerns from legalization advocates who said the state is missing out on nearly $200,000 a day in revenue.

"While the incremental revenue associated with those enterprises is important, it isn't really all that significant in the grand scheme of a $27 billion revenue base, tax revenue base, and another $15 billion federal reimbursement revenue base," Baker said during a sit-down with editors at MassLive and the Springfield Republican.

Baker, who opposed legalization of recreational marijuana when it was on the 2016 ballot, pointed to an increase in the number of people working in Massachusetts and personal income growth since 2015.

"That has so much more to do with what happens to tax revenue in Massachusetts than what would come from casino revenue or from recreational marijuana revenue over time," the governor said.

State revenue collections came to $3.223 billion in September, up 13.3 percent from a year ago, according to preliminary estimates released by the state Department of Revenue.

Marijuana legalization advocates, at a press conference outside the State House Monday, said the state has lost out on $16 million in revenues by missing the July 1 target date for the opening of retail pot shops.

The Cannabis Control Commission, an independent entity set up to oversee the new industry, is set to vote Thursday on final licenses for pot shops in Northampton and Leicester. The commission has signed off on 38 preliminary licenses for cultivation and retail, among other types, but opening dates remain unclear.

Jim Borghesani, a spokesman for the 2016 legalization ballot campaign, took aim at Baker on Monday, saying the governor had "provided no leadership" on the slow rollout of retail pot shops.

"The quality of our tax base is going to be driven by the quality of our economy," Baker said Wednesday. "Period. And I think people are making a mistake if they focus on some of this ancillary stuff and give it more credit than it deserves in the grand scheme of what's going on, generally, with the economy in Massachusetts."

Baker added that the ballot question and the state Legislature's subsequent rewrite of the voter-passed law set up the Cannabis Control Commission as an entity "separate and apart from guys like me." Similar to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, which oversees the new MGM Springfield resort casino and Plainridge Park Casino, the slots parlor in Plainville, the governor, the state treasurer and the attorney general make appointments to the commission.

Asked to comment on the pace of the Cannabis Control Commission, Baker offered a caveat by saying, "this isn't in my wheelhouse, it's not right in my line of vision so I'm not that close to it."

But Massachusetts regulators are looking at what's happened in Colorado, Washington and Nevada, which are among the states that legalized the controversial substance, according to Baker.

"I think they are trying to learn from some of the lessons of rollouts in other states and are therefore being careful about how they do some of this stuff," Baker said. "Because the one lesson that I heard from the governors and folks in other states that were early to recreational marijuana is you don't get a second chance."

Baker added: "I think that's probably a good thing."