Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as
New York’s governor last summer
delayed Alexander’s appointment,
which in turn stalled the distribu-
tion of licenses for dispensaries and
for clubs and lounges, where peo-
ple will be able to gather and smoke
indoors. The process has also been
aff ected by New York State’s eff orts
to take equity into account — that
is, to give priority to New Yorkers
with past cannabis convictions
when it assigns licenses. As The
Times noted in 2018, Hispanic
people across New York City had
been arrested on low-level can-
nabis charges at fi ve times the
rates of white, non-Hispanic peo-
ple over the previous three years;
in Manhattan, Black people had
been arrested at 15 times the rate
of white people, even though sur-
veys indicated that the rates of
cannabis use were similar for both
groups. The state now wants to try
to make up for those disparities.
It also seeks to remove as many
barriers as possible for small busi-
ness owners like C. and S., who, as
newcomers, ‘‘won’t get priority as
a New York community member,’’
Alexander says. ‘‘But maybe they
will get priority because they’re a
minority-owned business.’’When C. and S. landed in the city,
they didn’t have a solid plan for sell-
ing cannabis in New York. They also
didn’t know if they could keep things
going in Tampa from afar. They wor-
ried about their legal risks there
and for a time paused most of their
Florida operations. They considered
taking regular jobs: He spent a day
answering phones at a crisis-center
hotline; she wanted to be a food
blogger or recipe developer. But
nothing really clicked, and they soon
decided to stick with their original
idea — fi guring out how to keep their
brand afl oat in Tampa while estab-
lishing a foothold in Brooklyn.
One of the fi rst tests the couple
faced was the city’s familiar hazing
ritual: fi nding a place to live. ‘‘We
didn’t have pay stubs and all these
formal documents and papers that
you typically need if you’re going to
get an apartment here,’’ S. says. But
they had just enough cash, com-
ing in fromAnimal plans to start back up in
June with cannabis distribution as
part of its business model: If a city
resident buys a weed-themed piece
of art from the magazine, it will also
deliver an ounce of free cannabis.
Puff , Pass and Paint gives B.Y.O.C.
classes where you can smoke while
learning to paint. The business web-
site Quartz has reported that legal
cannabis sales in the United States
are forecast to grow 14 percent a
year on average and exceed $57 bil-
lion annually by 2030 — and that is
in only the states where such sales
are already permitted. When you
include the additional states poised
to legalize cannabis, the national
forecast exceeds $72 billion in sales.
In New York, Mayor Eric Adams has
proposed that the city invest $4.8
million next year in the local can-
nabis industry, which is expected
to generate nearly $1.3 billion in the
fi rst year of legal sales.
C. and S. arrived at just the right
time, in other words. Chris Alexan-
der, the executive director of the
Offi ce of Cannabis Management
for New York State, says that based
on the experience of other states
that have legalized recreational
cannabis, New York can expect
an infl ux of travelers and workers
to take advantage of a booming
industry. ‘‘Our internal estimates are
that there will be 60,000 jobs in the
state,’’ he says. ‘‘We’ll see a wave on
two sides, looking at sales and cul-
tivation. We already have our small
farmers growing. We have folks
coming in to help with expertise.’’
The reason it has taken so long
for the dispensaries to open for
recreational sales may in part be
because the scandal that led toIllustration by Jess Ebsworth The New York Times Magazine P. 23(Continued on Page )