"I come from one of the largest Black families here in Hudson and Columbia County, and those tentacles go wide," Hughes said. "I know when I open my doors, they're coming to my shop, and they're not going to go anywhere else. Their friends are coming to my shop, and they're not going anywhere else. I know that. I can say that very confidently."
Meanwhile, at the Common Council Finance Committee meeting last night, the disappointing revenues from the cannabis tax were a topic of discussion. In 2024 and 2025, high on the promise of new revenue for the city from the 4 percent cannabis tax, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment anticipated revenue considerably greater than what was realized. In 2025, projected revenue from the cannabis tax was $235,000. The actual revenue from the cannabis tax in 2025 was less than half that amount. Last night, City Treasurer Heather Campbell reported that $40,000 had been projected in cannabis tax revenue in the most recent quarter of 2026, but only $18,000 had been received.
Commenting on the situation, Councilmember Mohammed Rony (Second Ward) observed, "The informal economy still exists. The legal side does not eliminate the illegal side." Recalling how the lines went around the block in Great Barrington when the first cannabis dispensaries opened in Massachusetts, Councilmember Rich Volo (Fourth Ward) suggested, "It's just a trend that's kind of over." Noting that there was now a dispensary in Greenport and soon to be one in Claverack, Campbell suggested the problem was market saturation.
In the Register-Star article, Hughes, whose dispensary will be the third in Hudson and the fifth in the area that shares the 12534 zip code, responded to the notion that the market for cannabis was oversaturated:
"I always laugh at that," Hughes said. "Do we have a saturation of bars and breweries? Is there a saturation of hotels? Do we have a saturation of coffee shops? It's laughable. Customers are going to choose the business that they want to patronize."
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Update: A reader informs Gossips that a second dispensary is soon to open in Greenport, on Route 66 across from The Falls.
I go to all the dispensaries around here and they are never full except on rare occasions when an entire wedding party comes in at once. This is true in MA, too. At first, buying legal weed is a lark, then it's just another trip to the corner store. Then you realize you can buy legal weed illegally so . . ..
ReplyDeleteAll business is difficult. If making money was easy, everyone would be rich. I wish Bill luck. I hope he hires a seasoned marketing team.
That last quote is disappointing and makes it seem as if Bill doesn’t understand the business. The hotel comparison makes no sense at all, and the bar/brewery/coffee shop comparison seriously misunderstands the way those businesses work compared to dispensaries.
ReplyDeleteBars, breweries and coffee shops are social third places. Many locals use one or more of them as remote work spaces. Customers often spend hours in the same seat. Dispensaries are basically drive-thrus. It’s very rare to still be in a dispensary more than 5 minutes after you’ve made your purchase. These aren’t the same things.
Regarding Volo’s observation that legal cannabis consumption is a “trend that’s kind of over”: this is the opposite of what is actually happening. Cannabis use is at an all-time high.
And even if the analogy to bars, breweries, hotels and coffee shops was a valid one, I say we DO have saturation there. I think his better argument is that he can succeed by taking customers away from the other two shops. That's assuming, and I really don't know one way or the other, that the customers are Hudson residents and not tourists
DeleteHudson doesn’t have nearly enough hotel rooms for the events it already puts on. And it has 0 hotel rooms that someone making close to an average salary can afford. Bars, breweries, coffee shops..if we hit saturation, the businesses that aren’t someone’s trust fund fueled flight of fancy will close.
DeleteYou know what wont be going away? Columbia opportunities, across the street, about 250 feet away, far under the 500 foot minimum distance in New York State. They have been there for almost 30 years.
ReplyDeleteWe don’t make exceptions for liquor or tobacco sales when it comes to children, why is it allowed here?
I would love to hear the rational behind that genius decision.
It doesn’t matter to me personally, but the idea that a weed shop, which can legitimately be compared to a liquor store, is somehow a racial justice issue is absurd. I can’t imagine someone applying for a liquor license making a favorable argument for it based on the idea that black people in a historically black, low income neighborhood would visit the shop to buy liquor.
ReplyDeleteEqually laughable is that a government agency, after “legalizing” a plant that anyone could grow in a pot on their deck or the side of the road, would complain that they didn’t make enough money from taxing it’s sale.
The $18k figure is interesting. Anyone decent at math should be able to figure out the approximate gross sales for both dispensaries for the 1st quarter based on that.
ReplyDeleteThe 2nd quarter just ended on 8/31, with the state tax payment deadline being 9/20. That money hasn't necessarily made its way to the towns yet. NYS generally distributes the local cannabis tax revenue in January, April, July, and October, depending on when returns are filed.
A 3rd dispensary isn't going to magically add 33% in new tax revenue to that total. The amount of additional revenue depends entirely on how much of the existing market it captures.
It's also pretty safe to assume one established dispensary sells more than the other. So hopefully Bill has done the math on the ROI. With the market already having two established dispensaries in Hudson, opening a third one doesn't automatically mean there's another giant pool of untapped sales waiting to appear.
It might not be the path to generational wealth he assumes it will be.