There has been over $100 million worth of legal marijuana sold in New York so far this year.
According to the New York Office of Cannabis Management (NYOCM), there was $104 million in marijuana and marijuana products sold by licensed marijuana stores between January 1 and October 31. This is despite a rough rollout of the state’s legal marijuana industry which has included multiple court orders to halt licensing and hundreds of unlicensed marijuana stores opening throughout the state.
According to the NYOCM, there are 27 licensed marijuana stores throughout the state, with 54 approved cannabis grower showcases allowing marijuana to be sold on a temporary basis at locations such as farmer’s markets. These type of events have brought in $3.4 million in sales.
“I think it continues to reflect incredible retail velocity,” said OCM Director of Policy John Kagia, speaking on the $100 million milestone. “And with the extraordinary effort that our retailers have put forward in getting their stores up, securing diverse products and getting customers in, we continue to see strong growth amongst the operators that we currently have open.”
Kagia said that despite illegal marijuana stores outnumbering licensed outlets by hundreds to one, “critical differentiators between the legal market and the unregulated market—the number of SKUs that an individual store can carry. We’re certainly not seeing a great deal of unlicensed shops that have this level of diversity of product. And we think this is one of the things that is having customers come back into the legal store is the breadth of choice that allows them to choose products that reflect their unique use cases.”
By comparison, neighboring Massachusetts sold $148 million in legal marijuana in October alone. Neighboring Connecticut sold $25 million in October.
