SCHENECTADY — The Upstate Canna Co. in Schenectady is set to begin its second week in business on Saturday after an opening week that saw lines form around the block on Union Street with customers eager to visit the Capital Region’s first cannabis dispensary.
Upstate Canna Co. owner Don Andrews said Thursday that the business the shop has seen since its opening last Saturday had exceeded his expectations.
“It’s been going great,” he said. “We’ve had a line out the door since we opened the doors on Saturday morning and it’s been like that all day, everyday and all afternoon and evening.”
Andrews said on Thursday that the store has had enough product stocked to meet the high demand.
“All of our cultivators and processors are local,” he explained. “So they’re within an hour or hour and a half, so we can get same-day delivery if we run out.”
The store is supplied with its cannabis products, which include cannabis flowers and edibles, by local suppliers including the Adirondack Hemp Company in Saratoga and Nightshade Farm in Medusa.
Andrews said the store hopes to launch a pre–order system in the next two to four weeks, with the shop currently employing a first-come-first-served method.
Mark Eagan, the president of the Capital Region Chamber, said Friday that the success of the Schenectady dispensary could pave the way for additional cannabis shops to arrive in the region.
“I think that’s the state’s intention,” Eagan said. “This is the first one, but it won’t be the only one, because obviously there is a demand for it as we’ve seen by the lines. What are hope is, even in the short term, whether it’s this location or others that open, is that it brings people to those neighborhoods that they’ve never been to before. So the question is those folks on Upper Union Street, do they say, ‘I’m going to go in and get a sandwich here or buy a coffee there?’”
The 1613 Union St. store is one of 66 dispensaries statewide to receive a license from the New York State Office of Cannabis Management (OCM).
In the wake of Upstate Canna’s initial success, Andrews said he expects to see more local dispensaries following in his footsteps.
“As the OCM starts to release more licenses, I’m pretty positive that there will be more dispensaries in Schenectady,” he said.
Andrews declined to specify the amount of sales that the store has racked up during its first week.
“We’ve been moving a lot of stuff,” he said with a laugh. “We’re getting positive feedback from the community and everybody’s loving it.”
The dispensary is open from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sundays.
Andrews said he expects sizable crowds will flock to the shop during its second weekend of business.
“We expect just as many people as last Saturday, if not more,” he said.
Eagan said that with the Schenectady dispensary being the only cannabis shop in the region that customers from surrounding counties may be viewing the store as a destination.
“Every year we sponsor a restaurant week and we do surveying and we realize that every year about 30 percent of the people during that week don’t live in Schenectady County,” Eagan said. “We viewed that as a positive because it gave them a reason to come in and to see what’s going on in the city or in the county. Until there’s more options, it’s definitely going to bring people in.”
Contact Ted Remsnyder at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @TedRemsnyder.
Categories: News, Schenectady, Schenectady County
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