Three Years In, Two UWS Legal Cannabis Shops Gain a Tentative Footing

By Claire Elana Davenport

At first glance, Flower Power Dispensers looks more like a jewelry showroom than a cannabis shop. Nestled on a leafy, residential street just steps from Central Park and right around the corner from Lincoln Center, the interior is sleek and spacious. Glass cases dot the room, displaying pre-rolled joints, vapes, and concentrates in flavors such as “high octane grape” and “banana cream jealousy.” A television screen on the back wall plays a video of the edibles-production process, from marijuana leaf to gummy mold. 

A concierge greets customers and checks IDs; no one under 21 (the minimum age for legal possession) may enter the store. After the ID check, new customers meet with “budtenders” – staff cannabis experts ready to answer questions about the potency or strain of any given product. Experienced patrons who know what they are looking for can head to one of the many iPads mounted on counters and look up products by type, brand, and price.

According to Angelo Kitkas, the 44-year-old Astoria native who owns Flower Power, this is what a legal cannabis store can offer – a safe and knowledgeable experience for customers, whether they’re longtime weed connoisseurs or first-time marijuana buyers.

Kitkas began selling weed in 1997, right after graduating from high school. He was arrested for marijuana possession in 2004, an arrest that years later made him eligible for a New York state conditional adult-use retail dispensary (CAURD) license. 

After marijuana possession was legalized in New York in 2021, the state said it would award half of the licenses to sell cannabis products to “social and economic equity applicants,” a measure meant to benefit New Yorkers who were “disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition,” especially those like Kitkas who were convicted for a cannabis-related offense. 

A sign of how mainstream these licensed marijuana dispensaries were meant to be came when Flower Power opened its doors in April: among those who attended the grand opening was City Councilmember Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side. 

But by the time Kitkas opened the neighborhood’s first licensed dispensary, dozens of unlicensed shops had been in business for months on the Upper West Side, many of them openly selling marijuana and cigarette products without legal permission. Only after the city launched a crackdown in May on unlicensed shops, did business at his licensed store begin to take off, Kitkas said.

“We used to see around 150 customers a day. Now it’s almost doubled,” he said. “And I know they were previously going to the illegal shops because they’re asking for products that don’t exist in the New York market.”

A few blocks north of Flower Power is the Upper West Side’s only other legal dispensary, Just a Little Higher. Right across the street from its pink and green sign is an unlicensed smoke shop, Green Cleaners. Tymel Kornegay, one of Just a Little Higher’s co-owners, told me there used to be two more unlicensed shops on the street, but they recently were padlocked as part of the police department’s citywide Operation Padlock to Protect crackdown.

“The numbers are picking up, slowly but surely,” Kornegay said. “People appreciate the fact that we’re legal. The issue is just that they don’t always know we’re here.”

This is partially because Just a Little Higher, which opened in early April, arrived long after unlicensed stores had proliferated. After applying for a license, Just a Little Higher’s principals waited a year for their state-issued license, according to Todd Holloway, the store’s other co-owner. And that waiting period didn’t include the time Kornegay and Holloway had already invested in making their initial application.

“It was a grueling process. They want to know everything about you – what neighborhood you grew up in; the charges against you,” Holloway said. “But it’s worth it now that we’re here.” 

Holloway dealt with multiple arrests in his early twenties for marijuana possession right outside his home, in Albany, New York, making him eligible for the CUARD program. But his application was held up when veterans sued the Office of Cannabis Management, claiming they had been wrongfully excluded from the program. 

“No one can argue with the fact things didn’t go according to plan. But still, you don’t often get this kind of opportunity where I’m from,” Holloway said. “Though, there are a lot of people left behind,” he added.

Kitkas has a similar story. He said his application to the CUARD program took him three months to complete and cost him over $20,000. “I had to prove that I’d been arrested for marijuana-related charges and that I’d owned a profitable company for at least two years,” he said. “If you aren’t a lawyer, there’s certain language you could easily mess up on the application.”

Kitkas thinks the state needs to work to open legal dispensaries faster, partially to make the process less difficult for those trying to get into the business, but also to protect people who buy weed products at unlicensed shops. “If it’s not legal, it’s negligent. These shops are serving kids who could be walking into the store,” he said. “To me, that’s a big no-no.”

According to a 2022 cannabis industry report, when products from 20 unlicensed New York smoke shops were tested, 40 percent contained contaminants such as E coli, salmonella, or heavy metals. Critics of unlicensed shops also note that they are also decreasing the tax revenue generated for the state by the sale of licensed weed, some of which was earmarked for education and community investment.

Across the street from Just a Little Higher, business at the Green Cleaners shop is hopping. Customers move in and out quickly, purchasing lighters and pre-rolled joints. The store offers marijuana and tobacco products, bongs and other accessories, and boxes of “fetish urine” (which, when Googled, is exactly what it sounds like). There are also canisters of nitrous oxide, which recreational users inhale for a quick high — an act called a “whip-it” — with potentially unsafe consequences. When West Side Rag attempted to speak with the store owner, they declined to comment. 

Back at Just a Little Higher, Kornegay said he didn’t want to throw shade at unlicensed shops. But he said he hopes the atmosphere and the safety standards in licensed dispensaries like Just a Little Higher will draw customers. “People love the vibe here – the presence,” he said. 

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To check legal cannabis dispensary listings in your zip code, go here. City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office has also created this map to track unlicensed cannabis stores on the Upper West Side. You can find answers to more questions about the legal and illegal dispensaries in this guide, originally created by THE CITY.

Flower Power: 22 West 66th Street (CPW & Columbus)
Just a Little Higher: 157 West 72nd Street (Columbus & Amsterdam)

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