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Happy weekend, everyone!
We had another busy week covering legislative, regulatory and business stories in New York’s cannabis industry. Let’s take a look at what we wrote about.
Reporter Wes Parnell contributed a story about several publicly backed funds meant to bolster mom and pop cannabis stores across the New York supply chain either failing to meet their goals or delaying getting off the ground.
In New York City, a $20 million fund run by the New York City Economic Development Corporation is behind on its target to disburse money by the first quarter of 2024. The state’s Dormitory Authority has only bankrolled a fraction of the 150 stores it planned to fund with a separate statewide pot of money. And the same agency has yet to dole out any microbusiness loans it promised would be available to licensees almost a year ago.
We ran a piece about a traveling training program put on by the Cannabis Workforce Initiative called Seed-to-Success Statewide Live Workshop, which aims to provide detailed cannabis industry knowledge to everyone from consumers to prospective business owners.
The course has been providing free training to people interested in New York’s cannabis industry – and those interested in the plant in general – said Precious Brown, CEO of Rochester events business Entertaining and Elevating with Cannabis, who has been running the classes.
In a Q&A with Jasmin Kaur, co-owner of Long Island dispensary Strain Stars, Kaur told NY Cannabis Insider about how business has been at the store since it opened last July, and spoke about a scholarship fund in which Strain Stars is participating.
The shop is serving about 1,500 customers per day during the week, and about 2,000 per day on weekends, said Kaur, co-owner of the family-run business. Strain Stars is pulling in between $6 and $7 million per month, Kaur said. Additionally, Strain Stars recently teamed up with nonprofit organization New Hour to create a scholarship fund for the children of formerly incarcerated women.
Reporter Mel Hyman contributed a story about cultivators’ reactions to the state legislature approving a budget that doesn’t include a fund to help struggling cannabis farmers – which had been floated by multiple lawmakers.
The legislators, who chaired the agriculture committees in their respective chambers, said in a joint statement they were “very disappointed” they couldn’t push their relief package over the finish line.
Lastly, we added a new entry to our “People to know in NY cannabis” series: Danny Murr-Sloat, the owner, founder and lead consultant at AlpinStash Genetics & Consulting.
Have a great weekend everyone, we’ll be back with plenty more next week.
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