LEGAL PARADISE: In Ithaca, the 1st legal operational dispensary in CNY hopes to educate customers
J
ames Williams said he finally found his “paradise” after the William Jane recreational dispensary in Ithaca opened on March 16. The shop is the first legal operational dispensary in central New York.
Williams, who was born and raised in Syracuse’s Southside neighborhood before he moved to Ithaca nine years ago, emphasized the stigma he saw and experienced surrounding recreational cannabis use growing up. Williams first began smoking recreational cannabis in 2005, but hid it from people around him who viewed it as bad or wrong.
Now, through the legal dispensary, Williams sees a chance to educate the local community about recreational cannabis use through his role as a “budtender,” or dispensary employee, while also building a new sense of community with the continued expansion of regulated marijuana dispensaries throughout New York state.
After New York state’s Cannabis Control Board announced the initial approval of 36 Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary Licenses in November 2022, Williams said the new recreational marijuana licenses have been helping people previously impacted by disproportionate convictions for marijuana-related offenses.
William Durham, the owner of William Jane, was arrested for marijuana possession in Brooklyn when he was 23 years old. Following his arrest, Durham rebuilt his life as a businessman before becoming one of the first owners in New York state with an operational dispensary through the CAURD program. Williams said Durham serves as a great leader for the new dispensary as well as a model for the future of regulated cannabis businesses.
“(CAURD is) definitely a good sign for people with his resume, same background. This is encouragement. This is choosing a better life, choosing just to have hope,” Williams said. “This gives a lot of people hope, and it’s giving me hope.”
New York state initially awarded 28 of the 36 CAURD licenses to business owners with a prior marijuana-related conviction through Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Seeding Opportunity Initiative, including the William Jane dispensary.
In total, the state plans to reserve its initial 175 planned dispensary licenses for people with past marijuana convictions. As of March 2, the state had issued a total of 66 CAURD licenses, with 56 going to businesses and 10 going to nonprofit organizations.
Dominic, Durham’s cousin, said he knew many more family and friends that were arrested for smoking cannabis, even though he said it wasn’t as serious as other crimes.
A June 2013 study from the American Civil Liberties Union identified that Black people were over three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession compared to white people. In Brooklyn, where Durham was arrested, about four Black people were arrested for every one white person arrested for possession, the study found.
Rates are also disproportionate in Syracuse. A March 2021 study from The Public Science Project found that marijuana-related arrests in the city of Syracuse were four times higher for Black, Asian and Indigenous people compared to white people between 2010 and 2020. The study also identifies that Black people made up 80% of all marijuana-related arrests in the city between 2010 and 2020.
Dominic, who also works as an assistant manager at William Jane, called the new Ithaca dispensary a “full circle” moment in New York’s efforts to undo its past mistakes on marijuana convictions. He said regulation through the state is the best way to move forward, even as the CAURD licenses roll out at a gradual pace.
“It’s a learning experience, because the laws are still so new with New York state dispensaries,” Dominic said. “It was just like trying to raise a new baby, but you never had one before, so you just go step by step by step trying to just get everything right.”
The cannabis that the dispensary receives is lab tested and directly transported from state-regulated farms, Dominic said. Because of this, he said William Jane’s products are higher quality and have more detailed information in areas like origin and composition compared to “gray” markets, or non-state regulated dispensaries that sell cannabis products. In Syracuse, the city Common Council passed a law in December 2022 to make it easier for the city to close cannabis businesses that don’t possess a state license.
Opened on March 16 owner Willaim Durham and his staff welcomed the Ithaca community to try their variety of locally farmed products. Meghan Hendricks | Photo Editor
Dominic and Williams also want to build a sense of community through the products the dispensary sells, especially by educating their customers. Dominic said William Jane’s budtenders take classes on new products coming from state-regulated farms, which Williams said help them to inform customers about the cannabis they’re buying.
Williams also said the education the dispensary offers is specifically useful because it allows him to better interact with customers who are still new to the industry.
Under William Durham’s leadership, the staff works together like a family, Williams said. The new dispensary provides a great model for what the regulated cannabis market could look like if more licenses for dispensaries are approved for licenses, he said.
“(William Durham has) definitely been a great leader so far… always been a businessman, so he has always been smart,” Williams said. “He’s running his staff, his management is definitely doing great, and everybody is like a family here. That’s why this is the best place to work.”
Shortly after William Jane opened, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan on March 28 issued a ruling allowing New York state to distribute CAURD licenses to previously barred regions, including central New York. The recent ruling means that cities like Syracuse could see regulated dispensaries opening soon, the New York Times projected.
With more licensed dispensaries soon on their way to opening, Dominic said he hopes businesses like William Jane can continue to unite people through legal recreational cannabis use.
“It’s just amazing to me, because I never knew it was such a big community of cannabis like this,” Dominic said. “It’s definitely exciting to me to work here and call this place paradise.”