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Happy weekend, everyone!
Enjoy some green buds with your St. Patrick’s weekend’s green beer, and check out the stories we at NY Cannabis Insider covered last week.
First off, we released details about our upcoming NY Cannabis Insider get-together at Madam Mikette’s in New York City on April 2. The evening will feature a special discussion with panelists who represent the biggest components of the adult-use ecosystem throughout the state: cultivators, processors, dispensaries, and laboratories.
This “State of the State” will dive into what’s working, what’s not, what needs to happen next, and what those looking to get into the industry should consider before making the leap.
Reporter Wes Parnell published an investigation into a product recall for Jenny’s, a processing company owned and operated by Jenny Argie. His investigation found evidence that the Office of Cannabis Management is using enforcement powers to retaliate against those who speak out about its part in the flawed rollout of the new marketplace.
“Audio recordings, emails and social media posts, along with more than a dozen interviews with business owners and others, evidence why these operators are scared to talk – they’re afraid to lose or be denied a license, or experience ‘selective enforcement,’” Parnell found.
Parnell followed up that investigation with a story about Argie filing a lawsuit against the OCM, alleging regulators acted in “retaliatory, arbitrary and capricious” ways when they issued a stop-work order at her Hudson Valley processing facility.
Argie said her company will go out of business by the end of March if the stop-work order and quarantine on her products are not lifted, according to documents shared with NY Cannabis Insider.
Reporter Mel Hyman contributed a story about the State Senate’s proposed budget, which includes a total of $128 million in grants and loans for cannabis cultivators.
The plan, which in tandem with the state Assembly budget blueprint will be presented to Gov. Kathy Hochul for final approval, contains three main components:
- $60 million for cannabis farmer loans.
- $40 million for cannabis farmer grants.
- $28 million for cannabis farmer tax credits.
Markel Bababekov, owner of The Herbal Care, talked to NY Cannabis Insider about how the store is doing in its early days.
Business is slower than expected, said Bababekov, who added that his largest business concern is competing with NYC’s extensive unlicensed market. However, the store is drawing in some 100 customers on a daily basis, he said.
We also checked in with Ellis Soodak, owner of Verdi, the first legal cannabis dispensary to open in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
In a Q&A with NY Cannabis Insider, Soodak answered questions about what customers are buying, transitioning from the liquor store business to the cannabis industry and challenges in New York’s legal weed industry.
Lastly, we also added a new entry to our “People to know in NY cannabis” series: Sohan Bashar, the owner of Silk Road NYC, an adult-use cannabis dispensary.
Have a great weekend everyone, we’ll be back with plenty more next week.