New York’s legal cannabis industry hit a new high this week — with more than 100 licensed pot shops now open across the Empire State, officials said Thursday.
Of the 103 marijuana sellers in business, 44 are located in New York City.
Nineteen other licensed weed operators will open shortly and 35 other retail licenses were approved by the state Cannabis Control Board Thursday.
“We haven’t even tipped the iceberg yet,” CCB chairwoman Tremaine Wright said during Thursday’s public meeting.
Legal marijuana sales from cannabis shops jumped 32% for the first three months of 2024, to $85 million from $62 million during the last quarter of 2023, reported John Kagan, the state Office of Cannabis Management’s policy director.
The number of cannabis stores opening has dramatically picked up in the past few months. But state regulators admitted that the large illicit weed market is still a big problem and hoped Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany approve a tougher law as part of next year’s budget to make it easier to shut down unlicensed shops.
Marijuana consumers still have “thousands of options in the state” thanks to the huge black market of illicit stores, said CCB member Jennifer Gilbert Jenkins.
“We have all these illegal stores that need to be closed,” she said.
A key negotiator for the state Senate said Thursday a tougher padlock law will be part of an eventual accord on the budget, which was due April 1.
There will be a “big boost in enforcement” with “illegal shop closing options,” Senate Finance Committee Chairwoman Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) told The Post.
The state law legalizing marijuana was approved in March 2021 — but the rollout had been hampered by political and bureaucratic hurdles and lawsuits.
There was a delay in appointing members to the CCB and hiring of staff when former Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned amid a sexual misconduct scandal and was replaced by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The first cannabis shop opened in December 2022 but lawsuits, a backlog of applications for licensing of dispensaries, difficulties with financing and the failure to stop the unchecked growth of illegal shops slowed growth.
Farmers were left in the lurch, with hundreds of pounds of flowered marijuana they had no one to sell to.
