Brandon Carter (l) and Rodney Carter (r), owners of TRENDS in LIC, with their sister Kiara Carter (c).
Photo by Monica Vie
Long Island City’s first Black-owned dispensary is opening for business on 4/20.
TRENDS, which stands for ‘The Real Experience Needs Different Stories’, is the creation of brothers Rodney (CEO) and Brandon Carter (COO). The store spans 6,000 sq. ft., making it the largest cannabis dispensary in the neighborhood.
As Queens locals, they thought Long Island was the perfect place to set up shop.
“We actually live in this community. Me and my father moved to Long Island City back in 2015, we grew up in Jamaica, Queens,” said Brandon. “[Our father has] grown to love this neighborhood. We knew this is where it had to be. This feels like Manhattan outside of Manhattan.”
The opening of the store honors Rodney and Brandon’s father, Rodney Sr., who received a marijuana conviction just about 30 years ago. Their father initially brought the opportunity to open up TRENDS to the brothers after their uncle was approached by investors.
However, after the fees increased dramatically during the application process, the investors backed out at the last minute. That’s when the brothers decided to take on the application process themselves.
“I think in the last minute, they upped the price to 40,000 and due to that the investors dropped out, the lawyers, everybody dropped out and it was probably like a week, a week and a half left before the application deadline closed,” recalled Brandon. “We just reviewed the paperwork ourselves and said, you know, what, why don’t we just apply ourselves, put up the money ourselves and see what happens? We got the license in April 2023, and from there we have just been hitting the ground running.”
For Rodney and Brandon, taking away the stigma is incredibly important to the customer experience at TRENDS. They want to foster an environment of inclusivity and education, so…
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