GREENWICH VILLAGE, Manhattan (PIX11) — It was high time. That’s what people were saying as they stood in the long lines to buy legal recreational marijuana on opening day Thursday at the Housing Work Cannabis Company store in Manhattan.
Hopeful customers were served non-alcoholic drinks, courtesy of Housing Work Cannabis Company, as thousands waited in a 3 1/2 block line to get a chance to buy legal recreational marijuana for the first time in New York State.
But since the closing time at the Broadway and Eighth Street store was extended just a bit beyond 7 p.m., many were not going to get the chance.
“There is always tomorrow,” Sara Gluck, a would-be cannabis buyer, told PIX11 News.
But for those lucky enough to get inside the 4,400-square-foot former Gap store, there were only six brands of marijuana gummies and pot products costing between $18 and $130.
All the proceeds from this store go to Housing Works’ efforts to help people with a history of substance abuse or those who have been homeless or arrested for weed possession.
One of the first people to legally purchase two joints was 51-year-old Daron Hudson.
“It is bittersweet for me,” Hudson told PIX11 News. “I was arrested when I was 19 and a college student, and it affected me.”
The New York State Cannabis Control Board approved 36 dispensary licenses while New York is cracking down on illegal weed sales from smoke shops.
“We have been seizing product up and down the city and across the state, working with our partners, and we have seized millions of dollars of cannabis, and we are going to continue to do so,” Chris Alexander, the executive director of the Office of Cannabis Management.
