SARATOGA SPRINGS — Silver Therapeutics, a cannabis company co-owned by a Saratoga Springs resident, opened the first recreational dispensary in the city last Friday on Weibel Avenue.
“We wanted to be first,” said Brendan McKee, a co-founder of Silver Therapeutics. “We wanted to be in the community as soon as we could.”
Beating other companies to the punch while navigating New York’s regulatory requirements was a challenge, McKee said, but no more daunting than dealing with the requirements in other nearby states such as Massachusetts, Maine, and Vermont, where Silver Therapeutics collectively owns six other locations. McKee said that he tells aspiring dispensary owners that opening a shop is “probably going to take you twice as long as you think, and cost you twice as much as you think.”
Silver Therapeutics was keen to plant its flag in Saratoga because Josh Silver, a local attorney and co-founder of Silver Therapeutics, lives in the city with his wife and two children. Silver’s sister is also the license holder and partner for the Saratoga location, making it a woman-owned enterprise. According to trade publication MjBiz, 39% of cannabis executives in 2023 were women, an 18% increase from