Cannabis Dispensary Showroom Coming To Long Island This Weekend
DEER PARK, NY — A new kind of showroom is coming to Long Island.
The “New York State Dispensary Showroom Tour” will come to Deer Park on Friday, July 14 and Saturday, July 15 to help provide local entrepreneurs with the resources necessary to open their dispensary.
The showroom will uniquely be held in a future adult-use dispensary (Long Island Cannabis Club in Babylon) and feature a “Taste of Long Island” food showcase by Chef Ali.
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Anne Forkutza, creator of the showroom, works with Dutchie, a technology platform that provides the compliance software for dispensary operators. She told Patch that a previous client had done a showroom installation.
So when Desmond Lewis, co-founder of the Bronx Community Foundation, and Dutchie partner, mentioned wanting to educate people about dispensaries, a lightbulb went off.
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“He was saying, we’re teaching our clients the theory of cannabis and cannabis retail, but a lot of our clients have actually never been inside a licensed legal dispensary before,” Forkutza said. “Which often require going out of state and a lot of travel expenses.”
The two then hosted their first dispensary showroom in Grand Concourse. It was such a big success, they decided to take the showroom on tour throughout the state, such as Westchester, Mount Vernon, the Western New York and Rochester.
Long Island Cannabis Club, an upcoming Babylon CAURD (Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries) dispensary, located at 94 East Industry Court in Deer Park.
“I’m really excited about it,” Forkutza said.
The showroom will physically display what an adult-use dispensary needs to be fully compliant in New York. A life-sized dispensary will be built based on current regulations.
She also stated that the local community has greatly supported the organization of the showroom.
“This definitely is an event that we would not have been able to pull together without some of our local community folks in Long Island,” she said. “In this industry, we’re always learning from one another, and you can’t do this by yourself.”
Various organizations will also attend the event to recruiting employee and give specific training and certification in the cannabis industry. This event aims to create equitable workforce and educational opportunities for building generational wealth in under-resourced communities, Forkutza said.
Town officials will also participate in event discussions.
Fortuza said that all are welcome to the showroom, especially those who are not in favor of cannabis.
“The cannabis industry is coming to Long Island,” she said. “It’s not going away. SLook at it as, as a business like a licensed legal business, and it’s here to stay. “
Last week, the Long Island’s first recreational cannabis dispensary, Strain Stars, opened in Farmingdale.
In addition, the event will feature fireside chats with industry professionals, and an “Economic Opportunity Loss” panel, to showcase how many potential tax dollars Long Island municipalities stand to gain when opting in, and how this could translate to investments in education, pensions, and even paved roads for the community.
Fortuza hopes that people can come to the showroom with an “open mind” and learn something about cannabis they didn’t know before.
“I think New York will be the one to look at as a benchmark and a comparison for when other states are looking to legalize,” she said. “New York is doing it different and leading with a social impact.”
To learn more about the event and its workshops, or to reserve a spot, click here.
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