With legal marijuana dispensary licenses finally available in Brooklyn, retailers and major suppliers are finally getting ready to enter the market.
File photo by Dean Moses
Three legal marijuana dispensaries are in the clear to open up in Brooklyn after state Office of Cannabis Management approved new retail dispensary business licenses on Monday — clearing the way for local entrepreneurs to set up shop and setting the stage for the borough to take part in what’s expected to be one of the country’s biggest markets for cannabis.
The news came less than a week after a federal court lifted an injunction that had blocked licenses for the borough. Only seven licensed marijuana dispensaries stores have opened statewide so far —three in Manhattan, one in Queens, and the others upstate. A whopping 99 new licenses were granted across the state on Monday.
In line with the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries program, all three Brooklyn licenses were awarded to “justice-involved applicants,” those who have been convicted of a low-level marijuana-related offense in the past. The program aims to re-invest in communities that had been disproportionately impacted by harsh weed-related sentences before the drug was legalized in 2021.
