While the details of Shelton’s story are unique, the end result has become common across Delaware’s new recreational marijuana industry. Also highlighting the underwhelming launch of the recreational marijuana industry is the $53.4 million in revenue it generated in its first year, which officially began August 1, 2025. And he noted there is limited access to usable real estate for marijuana businesses. The law permitted municipalities to prohibit marijuana businesses from their jurisdictions and gave counties broad authority to dictate where shops could locate. The sheer prevalence of the latter in Sussex County made building a new project virtually impossible.