The Capital Region's second cannabis dispensary has opened in Rensselaer.
New York Office of Cannabis Management Chief Equity Officer Damian Fagon welcomed visitors to Stage One Dispensary, which opened its doors Friday in the former Rensselaer County Bank at 810 Broadway.
"We are on a roll this week," Fagon said. "We are opening up. We opened up the Bronx yesterday. We opened up a second. We opened up the Bronx, first in the Bronx. We opened up Vestal, New York today as well. Tomorrow is the first dispensary in Long Island. But today is about Stage One. Today is about Rensselaer. It's about Albany. It's about cannabis. It's about the farmers who are here with their products to sell. It's a great day if you love cannabis and you love New York."
Upstate Canna opened its Schenectady location in March.
Joshua Mirsky says he and his three co-owners have a history with cannabis.
"The four of us were negatively affected by the prohibition of marijuana 11 years ago, a group of us were arrested for conspiracy, and it was in our 30s," said Mirsky. "And we were all like, wow, what are we doing with our lives and it was a very traumatic experience really turned our lives around in terms of we decided, You know what, this this, this isn't for us. We're gonna we all started businesses. after that. I run a recording studio in Albany, I'm actually going to be moving it to here above above the dispensary. So we'll be serving servicing all your weed and recording needs here."
Republican Mayor Mike Stammel welcomed Stage One as "part of our budding community moving forward."
"We did a lot of education in the background, to make sure this is something that would fit in our community," Stammel said. "I can remember back in the '60s when when one of my friends was first arrested for having just a small amount of marijuana and I thought 'oh my God, the world is coming to an end now. They're going to be arresting everybody for this,' but it was illegal at the time. It's taken us a long time to get to where we are today. That's for sure."
Democratic Common Council President John DeFrancesco agrees:
"These gentlemen came to us with this dream and we hopped right on board and wanted to help see it through," said DeFrancesco. "So we're really pushing to do it. We're a city of under 10,000 people, we have 65% non taxable income. So this will help immensely."
Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs of New York State Office of Cannabis Tahlil McGough says it is important to de-stigmatize cannabis.
"One of the things I like to do is tell people that I'm a consumer and that you can hold a good job, you can go to law school, you can be an upstanding citizen and still consume cannabis and be friendly with everybody. And so I'm here to support these guys. I'm happy to see this going," McGough said.
Mirsky says the store is open seven days a week.
