Hartford City Council member plans ‘luxury cannabis’ business after receiving license

“The vision has really taken many iterations, and now it’s even bigger than I had originally planned,” Hercules said. “I’m certainly hoping to cultivate an ecosystem here in partnership with other Black cannabis business owners who can work collaboratively together to really make this market in Connecticut exciting and something different and innovative.”

Five of the 16 licenses awarded in July were to Hartford residents. Hercules is a public defender and a member of the Working Families Party.

In an April interview with Bryan T. Cafferell, commissioner of Department of Consumer Protections, Kaitlyn Krasselt, the department’s communications director, called out Hercules as a success story in the cannabis rollout.

“The majority of businesses in this industry are going to be run and majority owned and operated by people who meet the social equity criteria defined by the legislature,” Krasselt said. 

Hercules has been interested in getting involved in cannabis entrepreneurship since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. Her first idea was to open a cannabis bed and breakfast.

“But the law currently does allow for on-site consumption,” Hercules said. “At least not on-site where you sell it. And so I said, let’s look at the part of the supply chain that may have the lowest barrier to entry and where I could connect with the consumer closest. It seemed like a retail dispensary would be the entry point.”

Her brand is called “Lady Jane,” inspired by her desire to center women in her business plans.

“I am woman-centered,” Hercules said. “This is a female plant, and women add a lot to this industry, from marketing to branding, to creating really unique and personal customer experiences, to the expertise with the plant education.”

The equity side of the cannabis rollout has received critiques from social justice advocates who believe the process forces everyday people to partner with big-name corporations to succeed in the industry. 

“It meant that these supposedly equity operations are still half-owned by established operators,” said Jason Ortiz, executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, in an April interview with Hearst Connecticut Media Group. “So we don’t really have any equity-specific operators open in the state right now at this time. Zero, zero, zero, zero. There are some that are partly owned by equity operators, but there is no such thing as a fully equity-owned license holder that is actually producing anything in the state.”

For Hercules, the licensing process was fairly simple. She said she submitted 10 applications into the lottery, knowing that some larger companies had the means to submit hundreds. 

She said the partnership with Ayr would allow her to provide a broader range of products at her eventual retail locations. As of now, she does not have an official location picked out. Representatives from Ayr declined to comment at this early stage in the process.

Once it is up and running, Hercules will be the owner and manager, and Ayr will run the cultivation side. 

“Getting some of the documentation can be a barrier certainly for some people who may not have access to their birth certificates and tax records and different identifying information, but I’m a person that has had to have all this stuff kind of at the ready for many different reasons,” Hercules said. “That wasn’t very difficult. It wasn’t a difficult application.”

While Ayr might be providing a good portion of the products for sale at the Lady Jane locations, Hercules said she is committed to engaging the legacy market in her business. 

“One of the things I really am passionate about is bringing more legacy brands and Black-owned brands to the market, especially Connecticut,” Hercules said. “That is something I’m exploring now, how to make those collaborations with business owners and other markets or even here locally, who are interested in making that transition to legal and just don’t have the capacity to do it.”