Newsman: — The legal sale of marijuana in New York City will start of today. Those very first sales of pot will be at Housing Works Cannabis Company in Greenwich Village. The first official sale is expected to take place at 11:45 Thursday morning, following a press conference attended by the Office of Cannabis Management Executive Director Chris Alexander.
Appropriately, the public sale will not begin until 4:20 p.m. more New York dispensaries will open soon into the New Year as expected.
“A lot of people don’t realize the illegal smoke shops are drivers of crime also. We’ve had a series of people who have been targeting these illegal smoke shops that are sprouting up all over our city. And we think the legal cannabis industry is going to balance out the illegal. And then our coordination, we are going to zero in on them to make sure they don’t sprout up all over the city,” Mayor Adams said.
The dispensary is located at 750 Broadway in the Astor Place neighborhood, and on Thursday it will be serving patrons until 7:10 p.m. moving forward, Housing Works Cannabis Co.’s hours will be from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. daily.
To help more businesses get their storefronts up and running, the state released guidance earlier this month to allow licensed vendors to deliver marijuana by bikes and scooters.
Housing Works is a nonprofit organization that supports formerly incarcerated New Yorkers. It is also the largest minority-controlled HIV/AIDS service organization. They operate everything from thrift shops to bookstores to support their mission.
First, New York decriminalized weed, then it legalized it. By involving nonprofit organizations like Housing Works in the selling of weed and local farmers in production, the state hopes to make the industry as equitable as possible.
All proceeds from their dispensary sales will go to their parent organization, which was founded in 1990 to address HIV/AIDs and homelessness.
So far, the New York State Cannabis Control Board has approved 36 additional Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary Licenses. In the coming months, the state is expected to issue 139 more.
By involving nonprofit organizations like Housing Works in the selling of weed and local farmers in production, the state hopes to make the industry as equitable as possible.
