Licensing Moves Forward on First Legal Pot Shops in Lower Manhattan; Dozens More Expected to Follow
More than year after dozens of illegal smoke shops selling cannabis products opened in Lower Manhattan, the first lawful operator of such an establishment applied for a license to open at 16 Murray Street, in Tribeca. Ms. Nubia Ashley is seeking permission from the State’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) to open a store under the name Rezidue.
There are currently 11 legally authorized dispensaries in all of Manhattan, and only 48 in the entire state, according to data from OCM, which regulates the emerging industry. Although precise data are scarce, there appear to be as many as 50 illegal, unlicensed establishments selling cannabis products within the borders of Community Board 1 (CB1)—a patchwork of neighborhoods encompassing 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
In each of the three months in the last quarter of 2023, more than a dozen applicants came before CB1 seeking approval to open legally authorized cannabis dispensaries in Lower Manhattan. (Community Boards are given the opportunity to offer advisory opinions, prior to a final decision by OCM.) In each month, there were also more than a dozen additional applications that were rendered moot, either because the operator failed to appear at the CB1 committee, or else because a single operator was applying for licenses at more than one local address.
At the October meeting of CB1’s Licensing and Permits Committee, Ms. Ashley acknowledged, “I know a lot of people have problems with the illegal stores. But we will not be an illegal store. We will have safe products. We plan to have farmers come to the store for growers events, to meet the public, so they can see who’s growing the marijuana.”
“As a licensed retailer,” she continued, “we plan to sell legal cannabis at our dispensary, from farms all across New York, tested and licensed by the State. We plan to have a very welcoming environment. And we want as much support as we can get from the community. So we hope that you welcome us in.”
CB1 chair Tammy Meltzer said, “we’re trying to be supportive of the legal businesses, which we hope will shut down the illegal businesses in the neighborhood, but we also need to make sure that we all start off on the best footing possible.”
CB1 members reviewed the details of Ms. Ashley’s application, such as operating hours, the possibility of on-site consumption of products purchased at the store, security arrangements, and whether delivery personnel would wear uniforms identifying them as employees of a cannabis dispensary.
Susan Cole, chair of the Licensing and Permits Committee decried the administrative chaos surrounding the rollout of legal cannabis dispensaries, remarking, “OCM is is absolutely appalling. They really can’t work their way out of their underwear.”
Ms. Meltzer added that in a matter of weeks the agency has revised its guidance for local officials, withdrawn that guidance, issued new regulations, withdrawn those, and then published a further set of directives. In the meantime, she noted, CB1 is receiving up to two dozen new applications each month. (Tomorrow, January 18, at 6pm, CB1’s Executive Committee will review this month’s cannabis applications. See the calendar listings below for a link to view the livestreamed meeting.)
In total, CB1 is now at various stages of processing more than 50 cannabis license approval requests.
At the conclusion of this discussion, CB1 voted to endorse its first cannabis dispensary application: Ms. Ashley’s shop at 16 Murray Street. A month later, at the end of November, CB1 bestowed its second approval of a cannabis dispensary application in Lower Manhattan, this one at 35 Wall Street. No schedule for opening these establishments has been announced.
Early in 2024, OCM’s Cannabis Control Board is expected to issue hundreds of licenses for dispensaries that have secured store space and Community Board approval. “We’re looking forward to the first quarter of 2024… and to see a lot more people joining the ranks of our licensees,” Tremaine Wright, chair of the Cannabis Control Board, told Spectrum News.
In her State of the State address last week, Governor Kathy Hochul announced an expansion of enforcement against illegal cannabis shops. “As we continue to build and expand the most equitable legal cannabis market in the nation, we cannot let the brazen, illegal operators undermine public health and threaten our neighborhoods,” she said in a statement. “We’re going to continue working with local leaders, including in New York City, to shut down illegal cannabis stores once and for all.”