‘It’s tricky’: Retailers, landlords having trouble placing legal cannabis stores

That’s what Western New York’s first adult-use dispensary licensees say they are finding out as they search for locations to open their state-sanctioned weed stores.

Landlords are reluctant to rent to cannabis shops. Tenants in bigger retail plazas – especially national chains – often have language in their own leases that bars landlords from renting space to certain types of businesses, including cannabis shops.

It all complicates the hunt for space by cannabis license holders, like Aaron Van Camp.

Van Camp, one of four entrepreneurs approved for retail weed dispensary licenses in Western New York, had hoped to be open by last month, but his search for a location has been one disappointment after another.

He still hasn’t found a spot for his store – one of the first licensed to open in the Buffalo Niagara region.

“We are lowering our standards daily and still not finding anything,” he said.

Van Camp had settled last month on a property he liked across from the Boulevard Mall on Niagara Falls Boulevard, but as time went on, he saw signs the Realtor was being more hesitant with him than it would have been with other tenants.

“We didn’t feel like meeting with the company CEO was something everyone was going to have to do,” he said.

For weeks, Van Camp has been given the “extreme runaround” by commercial realtors, he said. He is adamant about not trying to finagle his way into a space where his line of business may not be wanted.

“I’m not bamboozling anyone,” he said. “It’s my third question: ‘Will you accept a state licensed recreational marijuana shop?’ “

So far, the answer has been no.

The state has not been much help, either.

From the beginning, sites for legal cannabis dispensaries were supposed to have been developed by the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York. The authority…