for Gothamist: 'A part of history': NYC's first legal weed store is open for business by José A. Alvarado Jr.

News

for Gothamist: 'A part of history': NYC's first legal weed store is open for business

josé a. alvarado jr.

Dec 30, 2022

Location: New York City

Summary

'A part of history': NYC's first legal weed store is open for business

A tin of watermelon gummies and an eighth of weed labeled “Banana Runtz” were the first products sold in New York’s first legal recreational marijuana market, which got off the ground with a single dispensary on Thursday in the East Village.

The honors went to Chris Alexander, executive director of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, who shelled out $96 for the goods at the dispensary run by the nonprofit Housing Works at East Eighth Street and Broadway.

Alexander was among a host of local elected officials and a gaggle of media who assembled in the Housing Works Cannabis Co. store ahead of its official opening at 4:20 p.m. He made the purchase hours before doors opened to the public.

Regular customers started lining up around 12:30 p.m., and by the time the store opened, the line wrapped around the block and extended past the Astor Place Starbucks.

Kenneth Woodin, a 33-year-old Houston native who now lives in Ocean Hill, was the first member of the public to patronize the store.

“I just want to be a part of history with my people, people who smoke, people who are down,” said Woodin. He said he has friends who have been incarcerated on marijuana charges.“Here, I get to be free, I get to be a part of freedom,” he said.

The store was rapidly assembled so it could open before the end of the year, allowing Gov. Kathy Hochul to fulfill her promise of opening the state's first dispensary before 2023. Its decor included colorful posters with the slogan, “make love, not drug war.”

Photographed for Gothamist, with words by Caroline Lewis and Gwynne Hogan.
'A part of history': NYC's first legal weed store is open for business - Gothamist
Gothamist is a non-profit local newsroom, powered by WNYC.

642

José A. Alvarado Jr.

Also by José A. Alvarado Jr. —

for The New York Times: Former Rikers Employees Are Charged With Smuggling in Contraband

for Seven Days VT: 'Safe Haven'

for The New York Times: Lawmaker Is Left With ‘Lifetime Trauma’ as Attacker Pleads Guilty

for The New York Times: Health Insurers’ Lucrative, Little-Known Alliance: 5 Takeaways

for The New York Times: Baruch College, an Upward-Mobility Machine

for The New Yorker: The Haunted Juror

for Bloomberg Originals:

for Bloomberg: Guyana Is Trying to Keep Its Oil Blessing From Becoming a Curse

for The New York Times: Audit Finds Fatal Lapses in Mental Health Program Meant to Curb Violence

for The Wall Street Journal: America’s Biggest Bank Is Growing the Old-Fashioned Way: Branches

for The New York Times: The Young Black Conservative Who Grew Up With, and Rejects, D.E.I.

for The New York Times: How Rikers Island Became New York’s Largest Mental Institution

for The New York Times: This Venezuelan Family Won Asylum. Days Later, They Lost It.

for Southern Foodways Alliance: Offsides Fowl

for Anglers Journal: End of an Era

for Bloomberg: ‘Market’s Wrong, I’m Not’: Mike Mayo Loves Playing a Provocateur

for Brooklyn Vegan: Glassjaw celebrated 30 years with career-spanning Brooklyn shows

for The New York Times: Kendra’s Law Was Meant to Prevent Violence. It Failed Hundreds of Times.

for The New York Times: A New Push to Improve Mental Health Care for Homeless New Yorkers

for Bloomberg: The Other Side of Greenwich: Hunger Among the Hedge Funds

for CULTURED Magazine: At 25, Artist Oscar yi Hou Has Already Had a Solo Museum Show—And Written a Memoir

TIME’s Top 100 Photos of 2023

for The New York Times: Behind 94 Acts of Shocking Violence, Years of Glaring Mistakes

for The New Yorker: What Will It Take to Win Brooklyn’s First Majority-Asian District?