He Staked Everything on His Legal Weed Store—Then New York State Pulled the Plug

By the end of July, Aaron Alexis thought he was one, maybe two days away from opening his new dispensary, Hand in Bush, in Bed-Stuy. All he had to do was clear out a little trash, tape up an errant wire—a few more small fixes like that, and he'd be ready to open his doors. It had been two and a half years since he first applied for a Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) license, designed by the Office of Cannabis Management to give New Yorkers who'd previously been charged with weed-related offenses a leg up in the state's new legal industry. His contact at the OCM told him that his application would be approved by the Cannabis Control Board the next time they met. 

But on July 28, Alexis got a letter from the OCM telling him that an abrupt change in state regulations meant his dispensary location was no longer viable because it's too close to two different schools. The letter meant that, after all that time, money, and emotional investment, Alexis can't get a permanent operating license, and therefore can't open up for business, even though he was finally at the finish line. He hadn't been back to the storefront since.

"I've been pretty depressed. I definitely feel very hopeless. Usually, I've been active, working to open the business," Alexis told me. "But now, even when I think about something I could do, I'm like, I might not even be at that location. So, it's just a good idea if I pause and stop working on everything, because I don't want to waste my time."