New York City
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The long wait is over as New York City has opened its first legal marijuana dispensary, with more slated to open within the next few months.
On Thursday (Dec. 29), the first legally licensed recreational marijuana dispensary in New York State will open in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan. The Housing Works Cannabis Company is preparing to open its doors after being given the go-ahead by Governor Kathy Hochul December 21.
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“We set a course just nine months ago to start New York’s adult-use cannabis market off on the right foot by prioritizing equity, and now, we’re fulfilling that goal,” she said at a press conference announcing the decision at the time.
New York Housing Works, a minority-controlled non-profit organization serving those afflicted with HIV and AIDS, is the first of 36 dispensaries that have been licensed to sell cannabis to the general public. The state’s Cannabis Control Board is on track to issue another 139 licenses within the next few months as another 900 applicants are awaiting a decision. The operating hours will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily, and the dispensary will be open to the general public at 4:20 p.m. after the VIPs have their chance to patronize the place in the morning.
The opening of Housing Works Cannabis Company comes as New York City Mayor Eric Adams has issued a directive to crack down on the numerous smoke shops and bodegas selling unlicensed cannabis products that have sprung up around the city within the past year. Quality and pricing are the main reasons why these places will present stiff competition to legal dispensaries, with the unlicensed stores also drawing customers in with more colorful displays and decorations.
“Either way you can get marijuana on each block you go on, so it’s going to be the same,” said Ron, a store employee at a smoke shop in the East Village. Housing Works CEO Charles King notes that the financial disparity in operations is a concern. “Because we have to pay taxes in three different jurisdictions, we also have to charge more for our product than the illegal market does,” he said in an interview.
The listed prices for some of their products are on par with what customers would find in unlicensed shops, with an ounce of weed priced at $20 to $35 and pre-rolled joints retailing for $16 to $25 – before the 13% sales tax. But others feel this opening won’t deter the underground market that much.
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Mayor Eric Adams hasn’t met a scandal that he couldn’t avoid. This time, the cop-turned-politician is answering to questions about his decision to go on vacay just before a winter storm was set to hit the city he’s in charge of over the Christmas holiday weekend.
Apparently, while the mayor’s office didn’t let the public know his whereabouts, it turns out he was in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Reports Gothamist:
The mayor revealed his weekend whereabouts at an unrelated press conference Tuesday evening after his office hid them from the public for days. Adams stood by his decision to leave town and said he was mourning his mother during his second Christmas without her.
“After 365 days of commitment to this city, I decided to take two days to reflect on mommy. And to watch how you responded to my two days out of this city was really alarming,” the mayor told reporters after someone asked where he had been over the holiday weekend. “I deserve a good work-life balance like you do.”
Hey, everyone needs time off, right?
However, a public official essentially telling his office to cover for him doesn’t exactly lend to transparency. Nevertheless, Adams insisted he followed protocol and just wanted some time to reflect on the loss of his mother.
Adams asked for sympathy from the city press corps as he noted that, in the past year, he has dealt with killings, fires and police officers dying — all without his parents. His mother died in 2021 while he was campaigning for mayor.
“If I take time off to get my mental capacity together, so I can take the city through the crisis, I deserve those two days,” the mayor said.
Adams added that he had followed City Charter rules, which place the first deputy mayor in charge in the mayor’s absence.
Considering New York City press, it was a lose, lose situation for Mayor Adams no matter what he did.
Just saying.
A new New York City law requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings has officially gone into effect this week, with music companies hiring in the city mandated to comply. On the first day of the law, a picture of at least one of the major music companies’ salary ranges has come into focus.
The day the law went into effect, several companies were criticized for overly-broad salary ranges that effectively subverted the point of the regulation, which was designed to give prospective employees insight into what they could be expected to earn at different companies in the city and address salary discrepancies between men and women and for people of color. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, posted reporting and producing jobs with ranges between $40,000 to $160,000; tech jobs at Amazon were anywhere from $88,400 to $185,000; while Citigroup initially posted some job openings as between $0 and $2 million, before revising them to a range of $59,340 to $149,320.
Among the three major labels, only Warner Music Group (WMG) seems to have complied with the law as of yet. The company has 11 listed job openings on its website across its three locations in New York City, though 10 of them relate to its Spring 2023 WMG Emerging Talent Associate Program, a part-time paid internship program that lists a range from $15 to $30 an hour for between 20 and 25 hours per week. Its final opening, for a digital marketing and content creation manager, is listed at between $58,500 and $70,000 annually.
Sony, meanwhile, has more than 40 openings in its New York locations across all its operations, though not all positions appear to have salary ranges listed; most appear to ask the applicants for a desired salary target, as part of a standard-issue form through LinkedIn. (The law allows companies 30 days to comply after a complaint is registered before facing penalties. A rep for Sony tells Billboard the company will be complying.) It does list starting salaries for its fellowship program, a 24-month position with a starting salary of $70,000 per year.
Universal Music Group has some 16 openings across various divisions in New York, many at its merchandising division Bravado. Though each posting promises a “competitive compensation package including salary, benefits and generous 401k savings plan with company matching,” none lists a salary range. (A rep for UMG did not respond to a request for comment.)
In the independent sector, several New York-based companies have also listed ranges. Concord, for example, has three non-internship positions available in New York: a publishing paralegal ($70K-$80K); a publishing sync manager ($55K-$65K); and a director of business and legal affairs for publishing ($100K-$125K). BMG has two open New York-based positions: an investments/M&A manager ($80K-$90K) and a senior marketing manager ($70K-$80K). Roc Nation has two music-related New York-based openings: one for a senior director of event sponsorships ($135K-$180K) and one for a senior director of music partnerships ($135K-$170K). A senior coordinator position overseeing royalties and income tracking at Kobalt pays between $45,600 and $57,000 in New York City.
Businesses with three or fewer employees and temp agencies are not subject to the new requirement.