Cannabis entrepreneur Jeremy Rivera opened Astoria’s first legal marijuana dispensary on Ditmars Boulevard on Tuesday after weeks of uncertainty and delays.
City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán; state Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas; and Damian Fagon, chief equity officer for the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, made the first purchases.
The colorful shop, called Terp Bros, is one of hundreds of New York dispensaries that state Supreme Court Judge Kevin Bryant blocked from opening in August amid a lawsuit challenging the state’s social equity licensing scheme. The Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary program — or CAURD — reserves licenses for people with past marijuana convictions and their family members.
Terp Bros is one of just five CAURD businesses Bryant exempted from the injunction earlier this month. The other businesses will also open this week, and include Conbud on the Lower East Side and Gotham Buds in Harlem.
Jeremy Rivera (center) celebrates the opening of his new dispensary in Astoria with Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas and City Councilmember Tiffany Cabán.
Jeremy Rivera holds up a bag of cannabis goods that were purchased on opening day at his shop Terp Bros.
“This has been a long time coming,” said Rivera, who fretted about losing about $260,000 in contractual commitments he invested in his store when the injunction went through this summer. “This has been a very, very rocky road. I want to thank the Office of Cannabis Management for always keeping a focus on equity.”
New York state will have 26 legal dispensaries and delivery services once the new operations open this week.
But more than 400 other businesses licensed under the CAURD program remain in limbo as the lawsuit proceeds. Earlier this year, a group of disabled veterans challenged the program’s validity, arguing that they should have been among those given priority for licenses under the 2021 law legalizing adult-use marijuana in New York.
The CAURD licensees entered the application pool starting last year, but the overwhelming majority of them are now jockeying with other businesses seeking cannabis licenses in the general application window, which opened on Oct. 4.
Terp Bros opened on Ditmars Boulevard in Astoria after a monthslong delay.
The state Office of Cannabis Management issued guidance recommending that CAURD licensees reapply, given the uncertainty created by the lawsuit, and noted that they will have to pay an additional application fee of $1,000.
Since the general licensing window opened, community boards across New York City have been overwhelmed by aspiring dispensary owners requesting that they recommend the state approve their applications, the news outlet The City reported.
Asked about the reported backlog on Tuesday, Fagon said, “The way we look at it is that people are excited to open up legal cannabis businesses. And they're letting community boards know that they want to open up in their communities.”
He added that he expected things to calm down after this first wave of eager applicants.
On Tuesday, the state’s Cannabis Control Board voted to extend the general application window by two weeks. The deadline to apply for a dispensary, cultivation, processing, microbusiness or distributor license is now Dec. 18.
