There was no weed at the weed store. It was supposed to be the grand opening of a Brooklyn pop-up shop for the Travel Agency, a cannabis dispensary with a flagship store in Manhattan’s Union Square. The smaller satellite store was a strategy to build name recognition. “There’s going to be more and more dispensaries every day,” Travel Agency president Arana Hankin-Biggers tells me. “The quicker we can get people into the store, the better it is for the brand.”
It’s a crowded market. If you’ve walked down a street in New York recently, you’ve likely seen a ton of stores selling weed. The Travel Agency’s main location has been one of just 16 stores operating with a license in New York City since cannabis became legal in the state. But getting a license can be a cumbersome process. And unfortunately, on the day it was meant to open in mid-January, the Brooklyn location was still waiting for its license—which is why there was no weed in sight, just empty display cases.
Would-be customers would have no shortage of other options. Estimates vary, but there are over 1,000, if not several thousand, unlicensed stores in the city. City