Madison Mills is joining us now from Zen Leaf in
Elizabeth, New Jersey. It's one of a handful
of dispensaries beginning recreational sales today maddie? It's very
loud over there. How's it going? Shonali,
There is so much energy here this morning. We
pulled up about an hour and a half ago and
there was still a line down the block. Even
then, like you mentioned, jen, we just
missed the boat on 4 20 yesterday to have these
shops opening up. But everyone is still just as
excited Today. I spoke with the folks at the
front of the line have been here since 6:30 a.m.
They've got their dogs in tow. They've got long
chairs. And the woman who was actually first in
line told me she has her medical marijuana cards,
so she's been able to shop at this location.
Previously, she was also able to actually get in
earlier this morning. They allowed folks with medical marijuana
cards to start shopping a little bit earlier, but
she specifically wanted to wait to be able to shop
as a recreational user because she said, this is
history in the making. So folks, again,
just really excited here. And just to give you
some context on this location, this is one of
Veron owes multiple dispensaries that are opening here in New
Jersey today. There are 13 locations across the state
opening up today and the New Jersey cannabis commission expects
that they're going to be 800,000 consumers across the state
and 800,000 what they call tourism consumers coming in across
state lines as well well, let's talk about those
tourism consumers maddie, Does that include new Yorkers?
I mean, we're in new york. Is it
just as easy to cross over state lines and and
go and shop there or what are you hearing?
Yeah. You know, the New Jersey cannabis Commission's
official position is that it is illegal to cross state
lines and so you can't cross state lines after purchasing
the product. So at this store, for example
, once you purchase the product, it's put into
a bag and then stapled shut, The idea being
that you have to go to your home in order
to consume uh there. It's very hard to enforce
something like that, right? It's very difficult to
enforce. Uh folks crossing state lines. I spoke
with some executives with murano this morning who said they
hadn't even heard of the New Jersey cannabis commission rebuffing
the idea of crossing state lines. They think that
perhaps there's an idea of trying to get more business
to New Jersey telling people, hey, if you
come over here to buy this product, maybe stick
around, get a hotel for the night shop at
our malls, go to a restaurant. But it's
very likely that we're going to see new Yorkers here
today. I've seen a lot of new york license
plates, New Yorkers who are in line today.
Also saying that they came in in order to be
able to purchase this product because sales haven't started up
in new york city just yet. It's funny,
it reminds me of sports betting when people were crossing
over just a little bit along the George Washington bridge
. The bridge between New york and New Jersey in
order to sports bet when it wasn't yet legal legal
in New york, you know, Maddie, There's
a lot of confusion about the New Jersey regulation because
with 130,000 people licensed to sell. That's not what
we're seeing in terms of numbers, obviously on day
one. So why is there so little in terms
of dispensaries opening today when we knew that the state
was going to come for so long. New Jersey
is very unique because their legislative process kind of was
a slow burn and then really quick approval. They
had about 10 days to go from this dispensary behind
me being a medical only location to medical and recreational
. Also, New Jersey legislators really wanted to leave
it up to individual municipalities. So if we look
at Hoboken for example, uh, some advocates for
legislation and legalization have said that there was a little
bit of a pay to play scenario in Hoboken specifically
as individuals were bargaining for their dispensaries to have not
just prescription only purchasing, but also recreational purchasing legislators
in the Hoboken area said, well, are you
willing to pay the salaries for two more police officers
that we could have on site. Uh, and
that does give off an impression again to advocates in
this space of a pay to play scenario. And
we did end up without a hoboken location as of
today. And also, oh, I think,
I think we've got the start opening right behind me
, this line flowing through. Um again, folks
, really excited, right? We've got, we've
got a lot of celebration people taking videos, very
, very historic day Here in New Jersey as people
are able to enter this store and start shopping,
it's never too early to start shopping. Clearly,
906 am. It's perfect and maddie. I can
only imagine it's going to get more crowded. Yes
. Yes, absolutely. And I should mention also
just kind of the shopping experience they have, it's
kind of like an apple store in there and we're
gonna, we're gonna bring you inside a little bit
later, but they've got ipads set up that people
can like select their their strain and what they're looking
for. They also have individual officials in there who
can talk you through what products you might be looking
for. So really trying to customize the shopping experience
for these folks who are just really excited to get
going this morning