The owners of New Metro, the first legal dispensary in eastern Queens, wanted to mix retro and modern with a print newspaper aesthetic.
Photo by Iryna Shkurhan
Almost two decades ago, as a fresh-faced teenager who just graduated from Cardozo High School, Sean Kang was arrested on cannabis charges near his Bayside home.
On Monday he felt a sense of justice as he opened the doors to the area’s first legal dispensary – New Metro on Horace Harding Expressway. The newspaper themed dispensary, which used to be a hot yoga studio, is the last store on a tucked away strip with several Asian restaurants. One of Kang’s arrests for possession took place just a block away.
“It was a way different landscape back then. They don’t even give you a ticket for smoking outside now,” said Kang at the grand opening of the store on Feb. 19. “Looking back, it was a gift and a curse.”
Road to Opening Day
Kang was one of the recipients of the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CUARD) license which gave individuals impacted by the criminalization of marijuana priority in entering the legal cannabis industry.
In his application, he showed that he successfully ran two ecommerce businesses, in the years since his arrests, indicating that he had the business chops to turn a profit. While he received his license to open a retail space in Queens last April, and was given the greenlight to carry on by Community Board 11 in July, bureaucratic challenges delayed the opening.
In August, four veterans filed a discrimination lawsuit alleging that the state’s CUARD licenses violated the 2021 legalization law by not offering licenses to all potential contenders at the same time. Service-disabled veterans, as well as women and minorities, are considered social equity applicants under the marijuana legalization law.
The injunction prevented hundreds of dispensaries from opening in a timely manner until it was lifted late last year, and a settlement was reached….
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