One night about A month later, I met C in Midtown on a walk-up on the 4th floor of a residential building built in 1910. There was a self-contained ATM in front and a member-only cannabis club banner. The building itself has two cannabis businesses. The club on the first floor is run by a legacy operator who has been illegally selling cannabis for 15 years, and the “Glow House” is on the second floor. Glow House is C. Is the place to get cannabis. “My main goal is to get only New York products,” he said. He doesn’t think users across the country appreciate the history of black market growth in New York, and he wants to help local industries, from seeds to smoke, with urban cultivators, pickers and rollers. thinking about. For example, sour diesel stocks are believed to have originated in New York. When C arrived in Miami, when C was a teenager, it was the only kind of cannabis he smoked. “I have a lot of respect for the producers in New York and a lot of respect for the game here. And I’m really honored to be able to participate in all this.” A place like the Glow House in Midtown is in the city. I didn’t know how many, but he speculated that the number could be in the hundreds. “Chinatown alone is where most of the country gets old-fashioned Baba,” he said. “The black market and the basement are beyond anyone’s imagination.”
This particular grower occupied the living room of two one-bedroom apartments. Danny (near Danny Life) started the operation two years ago. He showed me the 26 plants in the back apartment. He expected to produce 12 pounds of cannabis every 10 weeks. Each plant about 3 feet high had its own pot with a masking tape label that identified its strain (eg cherry limeland or joker candy) and phenotype. Danny didn’t want to show me because the plants in the previous apartment weren’t working well. The employee who was caring for them accidentally pruned the plants too much. C. and Danny shared the preroll, but discussed in depth the benefits of each strain and their preferred temperature (75-80 degrees), relative humidity (high 50, low 60 during flowering), and light. The plant, the last two variables, are remotely controlled by Danny over the phone.
Glow House is just one part of Danny’s business. He owns a farm in Oregon that is licensed to grow medical cannabis and a streetwear shop on Staten Island. When I asked how they met Danny and C, they both laughed. They didn’t remember at first, but then followed their connection to cannabis enthusiasts who posted about Danny’s event on Instagram.
Danny told me his latest goal is to deal with the national gap: quality pre-roll. “Preroll is contaminated in the national market because most people use garbage materials: endings and trims,” he said. He wanted to create 1,400 pre-rolls per day and sell wholesale for $ 5 each. He spent the entire shift from 9am to 5pm that day, working with employees to say “roll the cannoli.” The plants are all female and will eventually be cut and harvested in July.
When Danny closed the apartment, he whispered to the plant. “See you, love the girl.” He is 33 years old but has spent 18 years in the industry because he invests heavily in weeds — he longs for everything to be officially legal. “I can’t wait for the outpost to open. It will light up,” he said. Danny doesn’t mind talking publicly about his business. He has already joined several groups applying for cannabis cultivation and sales licenses and he is confident in his outlook. One project will be headquartered in a former bank in the nearby suburbs of White Plains. At some point, he noticed that he was with the Mayor of White Plains. “I’m a Puerto Rican in New York City, sitting in the mayor’s office, pushing weeds,” Danny told me and explained their meeting. The mayor asked Danny what his role in the company was. Danny told him about his industry expertise and added, “I’m the one who checks every box as far as social equality is concerned.”
S. and C. want to get their own license next year, but the process is slow (and probably expensive, they’re worried). “We’re trying to build a membership, but in reality we’re doing it the best way we can without anyone stepping on it,” says C. He points out that it’s a delicate balance, respecting the work of activists who helped pass the cannabis bill in New York, while trying to take advantage of the markets it creates. The issue of fairness is important to them. “Cannabis has a deep and dark history,” he says, referring to racial disparities in the arrest of cannabis possessions in urban areas. He saw it in person. “I’m from Miami, so I see. I want to make sure I do this in a particular way.”