In the past 10 months, the Official Dispensary Showroom Tour embarked on an intentional journey across New York state, covering diverse regions including The Bronx, Queens, Mount Vernon, Buffalo, Rochester, Long Island, Syracuse, and Poughkeepsie.
From license application bootcamps led by top legal firms to a life-sized dispensary demonstrating compliance with current regulations, the emphasis was on ensuring that under-resourced communities gained the knowledge necessary to actively participate in the ever-evolving New York cannabis industry.
By integrating workforce development and local community groups, the tour not only showcased compliance education but also contributed to equitable job opportunities, thereby reinforcing its role as a model for inclusivity and economic empowerment in the cannabis landscape.
Over the years, I have been lucky enough to have worked with some of the smartest, hardest working cannabis retail operators in the world (and even luckier to now call some of them my colleagues), and I’ve learned a few things from them along the way.
Here are some tips I shared during the tour for anyone looking to open a cannabis retail dispensary in New York:
Identify the decision makers.
When it comes to opening a dispensary, identifying your decision makers and forging connections with them as