Editors’ Note: This is the transcript version of the podcast. Please note that due to time and audio constraints, transcription may not be perfect. We encourage you to listen to the podcast, embedded below if you need any clarification. We hope you enjoy!
New York continues to be at the center of many topics in Cannabis. As the adult-use market slowly rolls out, changes are happening.
This week on The Dime, we host Jesse Campoamor to get an update on the current status of the NY Adult Use Cannabis Market and discuss:
- The Challenges of a limited license system
- Potential upcoming issues and adjustments to the market
- How NY plans to onramp legacy operators
- NY plan to eliminate the thriving grey market
- and so much more
About Campoarmor and Sons
Founder Jesse Campoamor, a veteran political operative, comes from a long line of New Yorkers who fought for those in need. From Campoamor’s grandfather, David L. Smith, becoming a leading figure in the city’s affordable housing and social justice movements to his mother, Karen Smith, serving as a New York State Supreme Court justice, the ethos and values of Campoamor & Sons are grounded in its founder’s identity, roots, and connections to New York and in the belief that we all do better when we’re in it together.
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[00:00:00]Bryan Fields: What’s up guys? Welcome back from the episode of The Dime. I’m Brian Fields and with me as always his killing, Finny. And this week we’ve got a very special guest, Jesse Campo and more. Jesse, thanks for taking the time. How you doing today?
[00:00:12]Jesse Campoamor: Lovely day. Thank you so much for bringing me on. I’m big fan of what you guys do, man.
[00:00:16] Thank you so much for having
[00:00:17]Bryan Fields: me. I appreciate that. Kellen, how are you doing?
[00:00:20]Kellan Finney: I’m doing really well. Excited to talk to Jesse. Excited to learn about the New York market, and I know it’s probably center stage right now.
[00:00:27]Bryan Fields: Um, how are you, Brian? I’m excited as well. You’re right. New York is always kind of right in the middle of it.
[00:00:32] And Jesse, we have a little East coast, west coast battle. I know Kellen kind of led into it, but for the record, your location please.
[00:00:40]Jesse Campoamor: Yeah, I’m, I’m talking to you right now from Manhattan, the epicenter of the cultural and financial epicenter of the world.
[00:00:46]Bryan Fields: Beautiful. Beautiful. So I guess before we dive in, Jesse, and before we talk New York cannabis, can we get a little background about yourself?
[00:00:53]Jesse Campoamor: Sure. So, um, I’m just coming off of a two year stint working for our governor, Andrew Colek, our former governor. [00:01:00] Um, I took the job six months prior to the pandemic, um, primarily to work on the cannabis file. I was very excited. Uh, . You know, prior to working for the governor, I worked for a, uh, consulting firm called Catino and Company, one of the largest municipal lobbying firms in the, in the state, in the country, actually.
[00:01:18] Um, and, and had built a, uh, business, um, in Catino representing cannabis companies, right? A lot of these white shoe lobbying firms were kind of staying away from cannabis. It was still a. Little hot, um, too hot to touch and, and, uh, you know, we had a leader who really believed in the opportunity and we built about a $4 million book of business.
[00:01:37] And so when, when I was approached by the leadership of the Como administration to come on board, I said, look, you guys have some brilliant minds over there. What I’m seeing you lack is somebody that can help you actually from a, from an operative standpoint, get us over the finish line. Um, and so when I came in, you know, Axl, Bernab and myself were really a one-two punch, right?
[00:01:55] Like I like to say, if Axl was the brains, I was the bran. And I say that with pride. [00:02:00] because, you know, there were so many stakeholders, you can imagine so many different voices and opinions that we needed to bring along on the ride, right? Um, and, and you know, we did that. We did that I think with perfection.
[00:02:12] Now, look, I, we can’t take all the credit. This was almost a perfect storm of events, right? Like, if there wasn’t this looming crisis and scandal that was going on behind the. With my principle, um, I don’t think we would’ve had the, the, the, the real latitude, uh, to, to, uh, to, to do and to take it as far as we did.
[00:02:30] Right. I think, you know, when, when the, the post-ops were written, the postmortems about what we did, talking about one of the most progressive forward thinking inclusive pieces of legislation on cannabis in the country, um, typically what would’ve happened if the executive and, and some of the other leadership had more bandwidth was they would’ve allowed us to take it to the five yard line, and then they would’ve said, we’re coming in and we’re gonna finish this thing out.
[00:02:54] They didn’t have the bandwidth to do that cuz they were dealing with this other crisis. Um, and it really gave us, you know, the [00:03:00] space to kind of get, get that, that bill in that we got the M Rt a. . Um, and so, you know my background, I’m sorry, I know I’m jumping around, but my background, I come out of the healthcare space.
[00:03:08] I, as my first 10 years of my career with 1199 S C I U, which is a healthcare worker’s union. I was a political organizer there. Um, jumped around to work for the city comptroller, then to the private sector. And then most recently I was with the governor’s office. You know, I left the governor. . Um, about a week after the, the Attorney General dropped her report on some of his conduct.
[00:03:29] Um, and now I’ve started my own firm, comparable Warren Sons, L l c. I really like to call myself a bit of a Sherpa, right? A Sherpa for, for a lot of these folks navigating what really is a regulatory forest. Um, you know, when I talked to cannabis companies, when I was on the government side, I said, you guys really are just compliance.
[00:03:47] In a highly regulated market, those that understand how to navigate through the compliance issues are the ones that find the largest margins. Um, and, and as of now in, in the private side of this, it’s, it’s so relevant because New York is a highly [00:04:00] regulated cannabis market. . Um, and so they need somebody that can guide them through that process.
[00:04:04] And like, you know, you know where a Sherpa is, right? The Sherpa’s, the guys that you hire, you want to hire, you know, climb Mount Everest, you hire a Sherpa, they throw you on their back and they take you up the mountain, you know? And I said, you know, I, I, I, a coach is a little bit more passive. They’re on the sidelines.
[00:04:19] I like to think of myself as very, very hands-on in the mix, um, helping that folks navigate through this process because guys, I’m sure you know, there are a lot of grifters, a lot of folks pretending to be experts in this space that are full of it. Um, and you can get fleeced in New York if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can end up spending a million extra dollars.
[00:04:37] You don’t have to spend, if you don’t have the right people on your. . Uh, and so, you know, now I’m working with some folks that come outta the legacy space, some more traditional organizations. I got an M S O, um, but all of that is really focused on what I feel is part of my legacy, which is making sure that the communities that were criminalized by the Warren drugs now benefit from the commercialization [00:05:00] of that same industry, right?
[00:05:01] One day this will create massive wealth. We’re not there. And I think there’s a lot of myth around people making money now, and the fact is a lot of people are losing money, but when that shift happens, I wanna make sure those that were, that were, you know, literally prosecuted and persecuted their whole lives, get to commercially benefit from.
[00:05:19]Bryan Fields: I think that’s really well said and there’s so much to kind of dive into and why. I’d love to kind of skip to the end and all the fun parts. I think it’s really important to start from the real beginning. So as of today, 1 18 20 23, what is the current status of New York cannabis market?
[00:05:33]Jesse Campoamor: So, uh, March 31st of last year, we signed the M R T A into, into, into Law.
[00:05:40] Um, quickly after that, we get the Cannabis Control Board set up, which is the five person commission that oversees the, the Office of Cannabis Management, uh, similar to our State Liquor Authority, where their commissioners, um, quickly, uh, look, there was a very intentional political calculus here, which is on the initial [00:06:00] roll.
[00:06:00] How do we, from a social equity lens, make sure we’re, we’re empowering some of those folks that have really fallen between the cracks. Right. So what happened first was we licensed conditional cultivators and conditional processors. Those were four. Those were hemp farmers, small hemp farmers that have been growing hemp at least for the last two years.
[00:06:20] Um, and then we quickly turned around and. The, uh, conditional adult use retail dispensaries or, or politically, we call them card applicants. Those are folks on the retail side that were justice involved, meaning they were, uh, they were, um, convicted, uh, for a cannabis related offense in the state of New York, and had demonstrated that they were able to run a profitable business for two years.
[00:06:43] Um, and so we’ve, we’ve now issued about 36, 38 of those licenses. The 25th of this month, OCM will, will reconvene and, and we’ll announce another 20 to 30. And you know, they, they’ve, they’ve said 150 of these licenses are up for grabs. Um, [00:07:00] we’ll see there, there is some hubub now, you know, and this is, this is, you’re hearing it first now on your podcast.
[00:07:05] Um, but there might be a scenario where we end up issuing a lot more than 150 for these card applicants. Um, because some of the scoring processes as, as we’re seeing, you know, they, they were stuck in this process of how do we deal with some of the social justice issues, social equity, but still, uh, empower and give licenses to some of the best operators And I think what we’re finding now is some of the guys that are winning the licenses first are winning because they came from zip codes of, of really, uh, abject poverty, um, with very low household income, uh, averages versus people that have demonstrated. , they’ve had a large workforce or, or large revenue, um, as part of their business.
[00:07:48] And so, you know, we’ll, we’ll see how that plays out. I think it’s a very interesting, um, you know, dilemma, but, uh, very exciting. I think also larger context, guys, this is like, if you look around the [00:08:00] country, there’s been no state that I know of that within the first 18 to 20 months of, of ratifying the. We already have processors, cultivators, and retail up and running.
[00:08:11] Um, and I think that’s kudos to O C M. That being said, a lot more work to get done. There’s a lot of product that’s just sitting in shelves right now, and then this is perishable goods. Um, and so I think O C M is really eager to, to get things going, uh, even faster. , but I gotta give it to them. They’re, they’re, they’re moving pretty quickly.
[00:08:28] I know there’s a look, New York State, New York is expecting in a New York minute. Right. That’s just part of our attitude. Um, but for real, like ki in, in the larger context, these guys are moving pretty fast. Yeah.
[00:08:40]Kellan Finney: So New York has always been kind of the, or trying to be the staple or the, the star child of social equity.
[00:08:46] Did you kind of describe some of the design features that went into how that was launched and why it. Uh, so long for them to make sure they got all the pieces in the right places before bringing the market. [00:09:00]
[00:09:00]Jesse Campoamor: Absolutely. Look, I think that I, I appreciate when, when I was working in, in the state and we were, you know, thinking about the social equity component, I think what we observed is that every other state thought about, so social equity was almost an afterthought.
[00:09:12] It was let’s stand up the cannabis market and then we’ll figure this social equity thing out. Yeah. And I think what was, what was unique and different about New York from our messaging, internal and, and. Reverberated because everybody that came into our offices led with the social equity component was that we were gonna, that that integral to the whole program was we, we would weave in social equity.
[00:09:32] And so what that looked like from a, from a legislative standpoint and structurally was 50% of all licenses have to go to, to, um, social equity, uh, candidates. Um, we’re gonna establish a fund, right, called a social equity fund. That’s a debt fund to give access to capital. For applicants, uh, that qualify as social equity, uh, candidates, right?
[00:09:52] And that’s really important. Cause as you guys know, the biggest barrier to entry for a lot of folks that come from less fortunate communities [00:10:00] is money. , right? This is a capital intensive job. This is a capital intensive business. Um, and for folks that don’t come from communities where they can raise a half a million, 2.5 million from friends and family, um, access to debt really changes the game.
[00:10:14] And so this, this debt fund that we started, that’s being run by our former controller, Billy Thompson and Suzanne Shank, with Chris Weber, uh, attached to. , um, it’s really meant to give access to, to those folks that otherwise really have trouble getting, getting any capital. And as you guys know, I can’t go to a commercial lending, right?
[00:10:32] This is not, it’s not legal from a federal standpoint. And so, um, this debt vehicle will issue funds at 8% plus prime in terms of, of, of the interest. So you’re looking at a fund where you’re looking at 14, 15% interest on the money. Guys that’s better than I can do anywhere else in the private market, right?
[00:10:49] Like you MSOs aren’t getting those rates in some cases, right? , um, you know, those are some of the core features. You know, other than that we have, uh, commitments to some [00:11:00] real, like mentorship training, certification programs. We just did a, uh, a mentorship program for cultivation, um, that you’re gonna see rollout pretty soon, which will fast track those applicants into probably the micro businesses or the, or the cultivation side.
[00:11:15] Um, but you know, you’re gonna see more features rollout, right? We have the chief equity officer at Damien Fagan, um, who has a real commit. To making sure that those communities are, um, being prioritized in this process. Look, prior to Prohibition, New York State was one of the largest arrest cannabis arrest states in the country, right?
[00:11:34] 1.25 million arrests prior to the end of prohibition. . But with, uh, you know, our goal now is to get 1.25 million legal sales in the market. Right? And when that, when that happens, you’re gonna see a lot of people rejoicing. Um, and so, look, we’re off to a good start. Uh, but you know, the, the difference between conceiving a great idea and executing it can be a huge gap, right?
[00:11:57] And I think that’s where we’re in this space [00:12:00] right now. And what you also have to appreciate, and you guys understand this, is that I’ve been in rooms with some of these big boys, some of these big cannabis investors. who are literally messaging, they’re waiting on the sidelines. They want the social equity program to fail.
[00:12:12] Why? Because they think they can get access to these licenses, right? These, these, the stress licenses, as you’ve seen across the country where they can buy them for 10 cents on the dollar, right? And so there, there is a, a, a narrative out there that is very intentional that this program’s gonna fail.
[00:12:27] because if it does, then I can buy these licenses for cheaper and this whole social equity experiment we can move on with, right? Like when you talk to big money about social equity, they look at it as a char, as a charitable issue. I don’t think they still yet realize the potential value in partnering with legacy and social equity guys, how it actually can strengthen brands, help you penetrate new demographics.
[00:12:49] Um, I don’t think that’s yet been realized. And the truth is, look, the capital markets value. If we can show that social equity is profitable, everybody’s [00:13:00] gonna be on board. Until then, it’s, it’s a, for them it’s a charitable thing. And, and I think they, uh, they come along cause we’re compelling them to. But it’s not by choice.
[00:13:09] I, I guarantee you that.
[00:13:11]Bryan Fields: Well, there’s definitely some areas there that specifically I wanna push back, but I wanna stay with the scoring first because I, I recognize that type of feat, right? Like having only what, just say 35 licenses to give out and having to score all these individuals. It seems very subjective as the scoring process is understanding which variables matter most.
[00:13:28] Because when you get down to, let’s say the 30 to 40 range, it’s nearly impossible to probably distinguish between who deserves one who not. , why not open up the licenses and let more of a free market opportunity and allow the stronger survive in those who have the chops in order to figure out, I recognize there’s capital hurdles as well and extremely competitive, but why not open it up and just let be more of a free market
[00:13:48]Jesse Campoamor: look, I think, I think that’s a, this, this is a really important issue because I think there, there’s a school of thought that says a limited license program.
[00:13:56] Protects the value of the paper, protects the value of the [00:14:00] license, absence of a limited license program, the value of that license, the value of that paper can’t be protected. And in the event that some of these businesses go into default, we can reposition that license and recoup any money that we’ve invested.
[00:14:12] And so there’s a, there’s a, a thought, you know, there’s, there’s a thought here that in order to do that, we have to create a limited license program. Because quite frankly, we looked at Oregon, we looked at other states that weren’t limited. , and it’s a nightmare over there, right? Like, like, you know, I’ve been to warehouses over there with cannabis.
[00:14:27] I’m six five. I’ve seen, I’ve seen mountains of cannabis that dwarf me, right? Because they let everybody grow out there. They didn’t, they didn’t create, they didn’t limit supply at all. Um, and so there has to be some healthy balance in between it, right? Like I think to your point, I think there’s room, quite frankly to open it up past 150.
[00:14:45] Um, especially with now they’re saying, you know, the regulations have been, have been proposed for the adult use market. Say that the, the ros now, the, the, um, MSOs and the, the verticals in the medical market. Have to wait three years to enter the adult use market. So these [00:15:00] guys have some runway, um, you know, in a state where we have 20 million give or so, residents, you know, uh, the idea that we have one store for every 20,000 residents isn’t the crazy idea.
[00:15:10] So you’re looking at a thousand potential stores when it’s all said and done, um, by not issue 250 to start. , quite frankly, there’s a lot of product that, that we need to get away, that we need to get off and we need more, we need more shelve to do that. So, yeah, I look, I, I, I, I, I’m in a school of thought that, um, we have the bandwidth and we have the space to issue more licenses.
[00:15:30] It comes down to real estate and capital. . Right. And those, and those are the issues right now that I think, you know, are holding up, you know, DASNY has been tasked that this, that’s the dormitory state Authority of New York who’s running the, the card program right now, uh, under Ruben McDaniel, who’s one of the, the members of the Cannabis Control Board.
[00:15:49] Um, you know, they hired C B R E to find. Uh, retail locations and, and it wasn’t that easy. I think these guys, um, maybe weren’t the best suited to do that job, [00:16:00] uh, and, and quickly learned like this. This is not as easy as they thought it would be. And so, you know, what you’ve seen now is the states say, Hey, If you can find your own space, go ahead.
[00:16:12]Kellan Finney: I’m a big fan of limited licensed states. I’ve said this before, I think that , I think it creates like a stability within the market, especially early on, right? Because if you just make it like a free for all, you just create this massive mess and so many operators end up going under and. A lot of dirty pool gets played and it just, it really doesn’t create, uh, a cultural stigma that’s beneficial to cannabis as a whole.
[00:16:37] Um, cause I think it ends up supporting the gray market. And so with that being said, was there any motivation to try to limit the licenses as a way to regulate the, the legal market and eliminate the, the
[00:16:51]Jesse Campoamor: black market? If you. So we call it the, we call that the legacy market. Um,
[00:16:55]Kellan Finney: the legacy market, of course, this
[00:16:58]Jesse Campoamor: language, but, but you know, I remember, [00:17:00] you know.
[00:17:00] No, you’re right, you’re right. First time I had to tell Governor Cuomo, it’s not the black market, it the legacy. You’re
[00:17:05]Bryan Fields: right, you’re traditional market is how we No,
[00:17:08]Jesse Campoamor: but, but look, I mean, so what, what we did, and, and if you look at the rhetoric that we used in the beginning, right? I think all the other states said, we need to displace, we need to displace, we need to displace.
[00:17:17] What we talked about was how do we. How do we absorb, right? Like it’s a difference between creating moats around the industry versus on-ramps, right? And what, and what that meant verbatim for us was like, we spent time in the governor’s office. Talking to legacy folks, asking them, what do you guys need to see in order to make it enticing for you guys to come out of the shadows into the legal market?
[00:17:41] And look, you’re not gonna please them all. There are guys that are just setting their ways, and no matter what you tell them, they’re gonna say, Hey, my margin’s, 30% compliance is gonna cost me another 20%. On top of that, why would I walk away making less money? Right? Now the obvious answer is there’s a ceiling to what you’re doing that we’re trying, we’re trying to break through, [00:18:00] right?
[00:18:00] Like there’s, you can never become an international brand. As long as you’re in that space. There will be a day where, you know these brands. Look, I, I think that New York State will launch some of the biggest brands in the world over the next couple of years. Um, and that’s, you know, that’s because I’m from New York.
[00:18:14] It’s because I think this is the, you know, the epicenter of the world. Um, but you, you only do that if you’re in a legal market. And so, you know, for us it was, it was really thinking about how do we absorb these guys? How do we bring them in to the market in a way that will enhance the overall experience?
[00:18:30] You guys know about California? What I mean, I, I conservatively, when I go on the show, I say, You know, California’s illicit market is three times bigger than the illegal market, but I’ve heard guys tell me it’s eight to nine times bigger than the legal market, right? And so you can’t win that fight, right?
[00:18:46] And when you look at the, at the alcohol, uh, in industry in that history as well, it took 20 to 31, almost 50 years to totally eradicate the, the illegal alcohol industry, right? And so, you know, none of this is gonna happen overnight. We know [00:19:00] that. But more importantly, from a, from a, a legacy standpoint, from.
[00:19:04] From a value standpoint, uh, we, we really believe, unless we find ways to bring those guys into the market, it’s not gonna succeed. because we’re gonna be competing against guys that have relationships with consumers way longer than we do know what they like, and have a level of trust. And if you guys have been consuming, you call your dealer because you have that relationship.
[00:19:24] It’s the guy that knows you and knows what you like, and you have that trust. And that’s important, that’s an important part of this aspect of, of this, of this market. And so, you know, but, but. There is a level of ingenuity and just an insight that some of these legacy guys have that really adds value to the market.
[00:19:42] You, you talked to MSOs, you know those guys, right? Who are their demographics? 55 year old soccer moms, right? Like you look at Cresto, right? What is that? Crespo’s retail brand is sunny side. , right? Like their stores are modeled after Sephora stores. It looks like cosmetics, right? Because they’re targeting that 55 year old [00:20:00] soccer mom.
[00:20:00] Because for them, that’s the fastest entering demographic into the market. That’s what they’ll tell you. But what they won’t tell you is they can’t go after the 50, you know, the, the high end connoisseur consumer, because those guys, there’s, there isn’t product that speaks to those guys in an authentic and genuine way.
[00:20:16] They don’t know how to do that. And with the legacy guys and with those, you know, we’ll call ’em Gray Market. , that’s who those guys know how to penetrate those guys spend money, right? Don’t forget 20% of the population consumes 80% of the product. Who do you think those 20% . And so that’s, that’s where, you know, if we can find a way to bring legacy and more traditional, uh, guys together.
[00:20:40] I really think that enhances the whole experience. Cause these legacy guys know how to build brands, know how to build experiences that can penetrate a whole, a whole new class of consumers that have not really been in the compliant market up until now. Cause the best way that I’ve seen has not been in the compliance store.
[00:20:56] Let me just tell you that right now. And
[00:20:58]Kellan Finney: legacy operators tend to [00:21:00] be like the best do it yourself people, right? And so like if you’re starting a company, you want someone who can wear a bunch of hats and legacy operators have been wearing a bunch of hats for a long.
[00:21:09]Jesse Campoamor: Yeah. And, and look, and that’s that.
[00:21:11] That’s right. But also at the same time, legacy guys do need help from the traditional guys because legacy guys have never done traditional marketing and advertising. You’re right. complex real estate two a d e compliance, right? Like they’ve never done any of those things. And they’re gonna need help with that in order to succeed in the legal market.
[00:21:27] And that’s where I think those, that’s the push and pull there, right? It’s like, you’re right. Extremely resilient, extremely insight. , but they still are gonna need help to be successful from a technical and legal component. And that’s where they can be. That’s where they can really serve you. And that, that’s the exciting part to me that I see is like, is like finding a way to marry those two.
[00:21:46] When I was in, um, we, when we went to MJ Biz and one of my, my clients and friends, Vlad from Happy Monkey, I don’t know if you’ve heard of those guys. Yeah, yeah. We we’re a good big fan, Great. And they brought ’em on stage for uh, um, a panel that said, Clash of the [00:22:00] Titans. Yeah. You know,
[00:22:01]Bryan Fields: two years, two or three years ago.
[00:22:02] Right. I remember that. Yeah. We were in the
[00:22:03]Jesse Campoamor: audience . Yeah. And so we pushed back and we said, that’s not, that’s a wrong way to frame it guys. It’s not about clash. It’s about how do we create these real marriages, right? Because look, we get it. We get it. There are the big boys out there, the the cure leaves of the world who really, really enjoy.
[00:22:19] the lack of federalization on, on cannabis, right? Because it’s, it’s created a mot and it’s really protected them, uh, from other folks penetrating the industry. Uh, but the time is coming, it’s inevitable. And, and so, you know, um, let’s see. Let’s see how things play out.
[00:22:33]Bryan Fields: In your opinion, Jesse, what is the most important goal or aspect when opening up an adult use market?
[00:22:39] Is it the on-ramp for the traditional market into legal, or is it, uh, something.
[00:22:45]Jesse Campoamor: Look, the, in New York state, the two driving narratives were, were health and social justice. Right? It was repairing the harm that was created by the War on drugs and providing communities access to quality, uh, affordable [00:23:00] cannabis and medical.
[00:23:01] You know, I think there are communities and, and, and look, I, I, I really believe in the medicine of this plant, right? And I think communities really too far off and. Everybody knows that everybody has somebody in their neighborhood that’s sitting on the couch smoking seven blunts in a day, or somebody like, we all know that guy.
[00:23:18] What I tell you is that guy is self-medicating right now. He’s over-medicating and he’s mis, he’s misusing, but that he’s medicating. He’s dealing with something and no closer, and the more we realize how to educate our folks on how to properly medic, The more, the better service we’re doing to our, for our people, because opioids, pills, prescription, all these things that are devastating our communities can be solved with cannabis
[00:23:43] Um, and so to me it’s like that, that becomes the, the focus point here is quality, affordable medicine, and making sure that the harm that that has been, that has been done is we’re slowly repairing that. . Um, and so that, that becomes the two focal points, and those are the driving [00:24:00] narratives that help, that help get us over the finish line.
[00:24:02] Don’t forget, one of the things, one of the big things that was happening was this whole pandemic around the, uh, the va. Right. Remember that was happening last year. Both kids were dying on the vape cause of this, these additives to the vape. Now that was predominantly tobacco vape products, but we took that and we, we ran with it and we said, Hey, this is what happens when you don’t regulate the market.
[00:24:21] You allow unregulated product that hasn’t been tested to be consumed. Um, and that, and that poses a health risk in danger to our folks. And so that, that, you know, again, those two components, the. And the social justice, um, were the two major drivers in,
[00:24:38]Bryan Fields: but not the, the on-ramp of the, the gray market into the legal market.
[00:24:43] Not to
[00:24:43] try
[00:24:43]Jesse Campoamor: to dampen that. So if, if you look, I, I appreciate you asking that. There is nothing in the m RT A that specifically talks about legacy. Right. There’s no language that talks about legacy in M R T A and I know a lot of the rhetoric, right. Addressed that. Right. But what we’ve done, or what they did artfully was [00:25:00] take social equity, social economic, uh, and equity.
[00:25:04] And they said, um, , you know, a lot of those narratives kind of run, run in line with the legacy narrative, right? And so when I talk to legacy guys, I say, Hey, don’t focus on the legacy component. Look at the metrics and criteria for social equity and, and fit that pipeline, fit that narrative. And they, and they coincide pretty well.
[00:25:24] Um, look, the le even the term legacy black market, I mean from a government standpoint, you know, you talk to, you talk to state reps right now and say, Hey, what do you feel about the legacy operator? and they’re gonna say, they’re gonna look at you like you’re speaking Chinese. They don’t even know what that means.
[00:25:39] Um, and so this massive education from a government bureaucratic standpoint, that we still need to, um, uh, do like, there’s a lot of work in that, in that, in that space. And so, you know, personally was, was that important to me? Yes, it was. I don’t think it was a compelling reason for, for Kathy Hoel or Andrew at that point.
[00:25:58] Um, I can tell you with [00:26:00] confidence it. But it’s become something that now has become more and more prevalent for different reasons. There are some big personalities in New York. Guys like Schitz, Bubs, VLA Batista, you know, the Happy monkey, the Astor Clubs. There are big names in this state, in this city, uh, that have really dominated the legacy space.
[00:26:19] Um, and I think there is a desire from the state, the final way to bring those guys. .
[00:26:23]Bryan Fields: I think everyone benefits if they do, right? I think as a whole, everyone gets an experience and, and expertise in an area that just might be differently. And one of the, the things that I wanna bring up and get your opinion on is this is not an MSO defender, but there is opportunities where they can contribute and make a difference to help others in, in the future, right?
[00:26:40] For, for one. we’re definitely gonna be short product. There’s no doubt about it. And my concern not only with the shortage of product is that integration of both sides. And instead of it being, you know, one verse the other, which is what common rhetoric is, I think it should just be a community aspect where where teams can benefit each other and expertise can be learned.
[00:26:57] Interested to hear your perspective on that.
[00:26:59]Jesse Campoamor: Look, I, [00:27:00] one of the things that I, that, you know, we were discussing before I left with Axl and something that we might a, actually see play out is we cannot build this industry without the MSOs. Let’s, let’s just be straightforward about that, right? Like, we need to use their infrastructure, their expertise.
[00:27:14] Quite frankly, there’s their market knowledge to get us to a point where we have supply, we have the infrastructure, I think where the push and pull here. is On day one, our MSOs going to totally dominate the market. Right? And I think what we wanted to make sure was, at least in those first five years, some of the smaller guys had a chance to get in, uh, build up a little bit, and men them take their exit, right?
[00:27:36] Because we know in, in the five to ten year timeframe, there’s going to be a massive consolidation of the market, right? That that’s inevitable. The question. is Prior to that, how do some of those folks get in, build brands that are worth value that those MSOs will eventually acquire? Um, look what we thought was why not use the MSOs as mentors?
[00:27:55] Why not use the MSOs as a backbone to even some of the legacy guys or some of the, the smaller [00:28:00] operators? You know, the carrot was. Hey, we’ll get you, enter the adult use market. We’ll even maybe let you have a vertical in the adult use market. And the stick, the stick was, if you don’t do it, we could actually revoke or take back or suspend your license.
[00:28:14] What we want to see is you mentor 10 to 5 of these smaller guys. Let them, if you have a, of that a hundred thousand square foot canopy, give them 10,000 square feet or give them 5,000 square feet to grow. You know, do do workforce training. Help them with compliance. There are low hanging fruit. Commit to 40% of your shelf space to these, to, to smaller cultivators and smaller operators.
[00:28:38] You know, these are low hanging fruit issues that we don’t even have to compel these guys into doing, um, that, that everybody benefits from. And so I’m, look I’m, I, I, I think we’re pretty much aligned on this issue. I don’t know if you thought I was gonna push back, but I I do think we need MSOs as part of the equation.
[00:28:55] Um, and, and it, it really boggles my mind when, when people are like, we got [00:29:00] to Keep the MSOs out of it and, and put them to the side. It’s like in what other world would you say the guys that are the actual, like, like main operators and like, and market shareholders are, are the ones that shouldn’t be at the table.
[00:29:14] It’s like you wouldn’t do that anywhere else.
[00:29:16]Kellan Finney: Um, no, and I think, I think a lot of people forget too, right? Like this whole M MSO acronym, it stands for a company that has people that can grow wheat, right? And. 10 years ago, they, the person growing weed wasn’t doing it legally. Right. And so MSOs have already adopted people from a legacy industry Absolutely.
[00:29:36] In order to be successful,
[00:29:38]Jesse Campoamor: you know what I mean? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, let’s be honest, right? Like these guys, most of these guys are former merger and acquisition guys. Wall Street guys, real estate guys, right? Like, and they decided to go on a two year, like research and development, ex exploration, talk to some people, and all of a sudden became the, like this, the, this bengalis of cannabis, right?
[00:29:59] But like, [00:30:00] They don’t have more experience than VLA from Happy Monkey. He’s been doing this for 20 years and spent the last five years touring around the country, talking to every legal and illegal operator out there, and has real data and real, real experience and anecdotals, right? And so it, it becomes this, this very interesting dynamic where, You know what I’ve seen is those that have the resources and capital lack the market expertise and knowledge, and those that have the market expertise and knowledge lack the capital and resources.
[00:30:29] And so it’s like how do we fuse those and make that marriage right, and facilitate that that. That bond. And that’s, that’s the exciting work. That’s the work that gets really exciting because when you see that work and that click, I mean, it’s not cookies. I don’t think cookies is the model, although cookies becomes the closest thing to the fusion of culture with corporate.
[00:30:46] Right. Um, and we’re seeing how that plays out. Right? Like Cookies has a store on 34th Street that’s just selling clothing. I’m hearing they’re gonna shut down in the next couple of weeks cuz they’re not doing. . Um, and I hear they have a whole new brand from New York because as you saw the [00:31:00] regulations, I’m not gonna allow cookies to brand themselves as cookies in New York , which is fine.
[00:31:04]Bryan Fields: Well, I mean also that that real estate they have is really primo spot. Right. And I can’t imagine that that is cheap. It has to be incredibly expensive. And I’m assuming that if you’re only selling clothing and you’re not selling enough clothing, it’s very hard to operate. But on the front it is really good marketing, right?
[00:31:22] Like the position you have. , but that’s expensive, expensive marketing. And there might be more creative ways for Burner to do so. I, I go back to like,
[00:31:30]Jesse Campoamor: I go back to California cause I think there’s just, there’s so much, you know, just data that we can look at. I think there’s this, this, this back and forth about real estate.
[00:31:38] Do I need to have the Times Square location to do $60 million a year? And I think juxtaposing the Med mens store in Venice to the Dizzy Store in la right? The Dizzy Store is doing 60 million a year. That store is in Bumble, like, like it’s not, it’s in like the most random spot you have to drive to get there.
[00:31:58] It’s not a great [00:32:00] location, but they’re doing 60 million a year and they’re way more profitable than Med men because their overhead isn’t insane. Right. And, and they have, they have a brand that people are seeking out. , right? And so, you know, look, when the hype dies down, right, like after this first two years, when the hype dies down, you know, the location is potentially important, but if the overhead is too high where you can’t make any money, what’s the point?
[00:32:23] And this is cannabis, right? So when, when I, when I say that, like, it’s not like it’s Louis Vuitton where I can mark up my products 22000%. There’s only so much I can mark up cannabis for, right? Like I was talking to my boy the other day. A bottle of water on Park Avenue costs $3 a bottle of water in Harlem costs $1.
[00:32:40] It’s the same damn bottle of water, right? But location changes the value of that. But you can’t, there’s only so much you can do with the eighth of weed, right? I can only charge it so much, and that’s still not enough to eat into the margin or the overhead that I’m paying for those, those Premo locations.
[00:32:54] And so I think there is this like hyper focus on like, I need the best physical [00:33:00] location. I need to be in Times Square, I need to be in Union Square. I need to be here. I think that’s going to I think folks are going to realize what they need is a good brand and, and operating, trying to keep operating costs as low as possible.
[00:33:10] Trying to keep overhead as low as possible. And if they can withstand that storm over this next year, because you know, hey, what did they say? Uh, win winter is coming, reference, right? Like, then, then they can, they can survive. But, but that’s gonna be the challenge for a lot of these.
[00:33:25]Bryan Fields: I, I, I don’t think people realize how, how hard that actually is.
[00:33:28] Right? And given today’s framework of, let’s say we’ve got one store, and hopefully by six months from now we’ve got 20 just hopefully guessing. The expectation is that as more stores come online, the traffic foot area is going to change, which is going to adjust their numbers, which I think makes it even harder for current operators to make financial decisions, right?
[00:33:46] Capital’s hard to come by. Decisions are hard to do. Your partners are limited. And now given the framework of how things are, it’s really impossible, nearly impossible to make accurate financial future decisions.
[00:33:56]Jesse Campoamor: It, it’s, I mean, I, I’ve worked on proformas for this [00:34:00] stuff. I mean, you gotta see the differences on this.
[00:34:02] It’s insane. It’s insane, right? Like, I’ve seen proforma, I say this is a 17 million a year business. Oh, say it is a 60 million a year business. I can drive a jumbo tractor trailer through that, that, that, that difference right there, right? Like, and, and so look, a lot of this is, is, uh, what we say the best, you know, hy hypothetical guessing as possible based on the data that we have available to us.
[00:34:25] A lot of that is gonna be put into practice in this next year or so. We’re gonna see how these things really play out and look, and I think, you know, I’ve, I’ve done a lot of, um, traveling around the state to the farmers to see what’s out there. 90% of the stuff being grown, I would’ve, I would not touch with a 10 foot pole, right?
[00:34:42] Like, I’d say 10% of the product out there is Quan. Um, but it’s gonna take a couple of years for those guys to dial. , like even if he took a, a very experienced cultivator from another state and put them in New York, it’s gonna take him, you know, a couple of runs to really figure it. Because it’s a different [00:35:00] environment, different, uh, resources.
[00:35:02] Gotta figure out the peach levels in the water, all these other elements, right? And so I think, um, it’s gonna take some time for some of these things to figure themselves out. And, and I think to your point, that’s gonna make the difference with the guy that’s, that’s that’s here in three years to the guy that had a, you know, it was a good run for a year and a.
[00:35:20] and they’re gone.
[00:35:21]Bryan Fields: Um, but isn’t, isn’t that why consumers New York consumers are ultimately gonna be the ones suffering from the market dynamics? And wouldn’t that be an extra reason why it would be helpful to have Ros, let’s say, segment a certain portion of their cultivation for the adult use market, just so that the consumers could get some additional benefits?
[00:35:37] And, and just to kind of add onto your point,
[00:35:40]Jesse Campoamor: Yeah. Look, I, I think you know, it, it’s, it’s very interesting, you know, who gets access to what and how. Right. And I think that becomes, especially in a place like New York, you know, everybody wants to have the fire, everybody wants to have the A one. Everybody wants to have the best of the best, right?
[00:35:56] And, and, um, and the ros and the, the verticals are [00:36:00] gonna play a significant role in. . Um, but I think what, what needs to, you can’t forget any, but what we’ve seen in other states is what ends up really happening is the ros. I like to say today’s fish versus yesterday’s fish. Right? And I, and the fish meaning the product, right?
[00:36:14] Like, how do we make sure that the diversity of product is equally being spread out amongst the market versus the OS saying, I’m gonna pick you, you and you, you guys are the winners and everybody else is left out in the. , right? So now these are the three retailers that have, that have the best product and everybody else is left behind.
[00:36:32] I think that’s where the state starts to get a little nervous, right? That’s where they say, Hey, we don’t want to create this unfair dynamic and this unfair competition, where now these three guys are the, are the coveted stores and everybody else is being boxed out. That’s
[00:36:45]Bryan Fields: where brand new brands win, right?
[00:36:47] Like, like we talked about, like that’s where the investment into the brands is really gonna be the U s P of these different companies. What I think is, is, is being understood or expected is that people are gonna get participation [00:37:00] trophies, and that’s not what’s happening. What they’re getting is , they’re, they’re getting a chance to operate first in a extremely challenging competitive market.
[00:37:08] With a tiny bit of headstart, no doubt about that. But ultimately, as things progress, they’re gonna have to navigate all these landmines first, and brands are gonna win out, and eventually it’s going to be way harder than it is right now.
[00:37:20]Jesse Campoamor: I, I agree with you on the brands part. Look, I, I, I’ve been saying this over and over, I’m, it’s not a broken record, but, but the first mouse is going to get the trap, right?
[00:37:27] The second mouse is going to get the cheese. . Right. And I don’t, I don’t think being first is the best here in this case. Right? I think there’s still a lot that needs to, to be like un, like untangled and a lot needs to reveal itself. And so, you know, I know there’s been this mad dash. I want to be the first one I want to open up first.
[00:37:44] But the guys that I’m working with, I’m like, let’s just, let’s wait. Let’s see how this thing plays out. There’s no rush here to be the first. There’s still a lot of stuff that needs to get, to get on to get figured out here. And so, uh, yeah. Yeah, I totally agree. I think there’s, you know, there, there’s still time.
[00:37:59] Um, [00:38:00] and folks that I think are savvy about this stuff are kind of seeing how things unravel, how they. , um, before they jump in head first, because the other part that you kind of touched on is this. Well, we, we, we’ve created this two-tier system with this true party of interest in this undue influence issue, where in some ways we really limited access to capital and to expertise.
[00:38:20] Um, and I think that that was unfortunate. I think that was, uh, I think in, in the, in the, in the, the method of trying to protect some of the smaller guys, I think we might have inadvertently harmed them in the process. And I’m really eager see how that plays. , um, you know, I’m working with a nonprofit called Life Camp.
[00:38:37] They were one of the first 36 to win a license. They don’t have access to the debt fund, and now they need to raise money. One of the, one of the other ones, um, the do the DO fund had to sell 49% of their license just to get out, just to be operational. Right? They sold it to Harbor. So it’s already on day one.
[00:38:54] You know, they’ve just lost, you know, they’ve lost a huge portion of their, of their operation and the revenue that they’re supposed to [00:39:00] generate to enhance and further their mission. Um, and so I’d like to, they get a chance to, right? Yeah. They get a chance.
[00:39:07]Kellan Finney: It’s tough, right? That’s the decisions
[00:39:08]Jesse Campoamor: they gotta make.
[00:39:09] those are the tough choices they’re being compelled to make. Right? Those are the really tough choices they have to make. And it’s just a reality, right? It’s just a reality. But, um, if the state, if the state’s idea was we want to give these nonprofits a social enterprise to help them further their mission, then the idea that they have to sell almost half of it to accomplish that, it almost feels counterintuitive.
[00:39:30] It really does.
[00:39:32]Bryan Fields: ex, exactly. Like that’s the, the hardest challenge is that you’ve got a. Variables. Trying to make a decision that collectively people think is best. But as everyone usually does, people operate in their own self-interest and the person making decision also has their own personal biases.
[00:39:47] Right. Is probably not intentionally making selective decisions, but ultimately, like you said before, Jesse have to go left or right, but has to make a decision. Either way. People are gonna be mad because at the end of the day, what you think is fair and what I think is fair [00:40:00] is not necessarily.
[00:40:01]Jesse Campoamor: That’s right, that’s right.
[00:40:03] By the way, fair has nothing to do with this thing. . Just,
[00:40:06]Bryan Fields: just using, just using that, like, it’s an example of like what, what we would decide
[00:40:10]Jesse Campoamor: ultimately nothing to do with cannabis. I, by the way, I thought it did. I, I’ve learned, I’ve learned the hard way. It has nothing to do with cannabis. Turns
[00:40:17]Kellan Finney: out cannabis is, uh, just as hard to operate and it is to, uh, write the rules for.
[00:40:23]Jesse Campoamor: I’m, and I’m learning, I’m learning, you know, I’m learning the hard way, right? I mean, I, I, you know, my relationship with cannabis starts back in, like in child, like growing up in New York City and just like being exposed to it from, as a child, like as a, as an adolescent, as a high schooler. Um, but we’re in a different world now.
[00:40:38] I mean, what got me involved in cannabis first was I was, I was riding around with these kids from Canada. , uh, who were like some of the med men guys. We were in a limo as a, when I was a consultant, and they’re telling me, we run the Canada scene in New York. We run it in New York. These, these white boys from Canada.
[00:40:55] And that just didn’t sit well with me. I was like, this is fucking, this, something’s wrong with this . This is not the, this is [00:41:00] not right. And wasn’t even like, it’s like you guys are Canadian. Like, come on, this is New York City. Like, don’t tell me you guys are running cannabis in New York. And that’s when I got involved.
[00:41:08] I was like, we need to find, uh, real talented New York folks that need to be at the forefront of this thing. Um, and they’re out there. They’re out there guys. I, I, I, they are. So, I mean, New York is full of creative, brilliant minds when it comes to this market. Um, and I’m really excited for the rest of the world to see.
[00:41:27]Bryan Fields: Yeah, me as well. So what is happening today at City Council that is probably very important, um, for the future of the cannabis market? Yes.
[00:41:36]Jesse Campoamor: So the city council is holding a hearing as we speak about the proliferation of these illegal stores. Um, if you go down New York, I, I, I say it all the time, I can get a dad at my bodega, right?
[00:41:48] Right. Like there are stores and it’s, it’s ostentatious guys. The signs read Zaza or pip, right? And it’s like, it, it is, it is blatant. I can’t walk two city blocks [00:42:00] in Manhattan without passing a, a store. And I think a lot of New Yorkers. Really have no idea what is compliant and what isn’t compliant. And I think the state is starting to embark on an education campaign of bilingual New York weed.
[00:42:14] Um, they’re putting medallions in the front of the, on the front of the stores, a QR code that you can scan. But look, this is really gonna come down to consumers making educated decisions. Right? There was a report that came out a couple of weeks ago from, um, the, the Medical Cannabis Industry Association, which is really, this is all the MSOs, all the.
[00:42:34] They bought a bunch of product from the illegal stores and test. Pesticides, e coli, heavy metals, just things that you probably wouldn’t want to consume or put in your body they found. Um, and so consumers are gonna have to make a decision, right? Do they wanna run the risk and run the gamble of using product that has not been tested?
[00:42:55] Or do they want to jump in and, and like, and like support guys playing by the rules. [00:43:00] Um, look, the other thing is, and let’s be honest, like a lot of New Yorkers that have consumed have been smoking weed with pesticides and heavy metals for the last 20 years. So you tell ’em that and they’re like, what? I, that’s what I love ever smoking.
[00:43:12] So what’s the problem? What’s the difference? But I think as you know, we, you know, we’re moving into this very health conscious world where people want the antioxidants and the zaas and all that other stuff. , that’s gonna be part of the issue. That’s gonna be part of the issue. So
[00:43:27]Bryan Fields: I think one of the biggest concerns with that is not only the availability of it, because all the different stores that are around, but is the trust aspect that you said is that if people don’t know the difference and don’t really look into the difference, it’s nearly impossible for them to, to identify the, the tiny symbol in the window and say, okay, this is unlicensed.
[00:43:42] Because I’ve got friends who text me every single. Saying, Hey, you told me New York is not open. There’s only one or two stores, but I just went to a store down the street that all my favorite California products, I got to buy everything with a credit card. Like, why did you tell me it’s not? It is. And it’s like, well,
[00:43:59]Jesse Campoamor: By the way, all those [00:44:00] products are Fugazi, right?
[00:44:01] Like, like I can, I can go to Alibaba right now and get a king pen, like bag and a, and a vinky and all that and put anything I want into it, right? Like don’t, guys, don’t, don’t be fooled. It’s all Fugazi,
[00:44:11]Bryan Fields: but, but price matters, right? And that’s really my biggest concern is that if people are paying, let’s say $80 for an eighth at a legal store and $40 for a product, they think.
[00:44:22] his fire at an unlicensed door. It’s really hard for me to believe that people are gonna travel farther, to pay more and wait. Look,
[00:44:29]Jesse Campoamor: I, I, I, this, this is going, this, this right there is going to be something that, that we will see play out in the next couple of years. Right? Like, do I want to take the risk and, and buy, you know, uh, uncle Jimmy’s whiskey from, that he made in his basement, right?
[00:44:42] Or do I want to go get the, the stuff out of the store that I know is quality and I know is not gonna make me sick the next day, right? I think that’s, that’s kind of what’s at, at play here. We’ll see, we’ll see how it plays out. I agree with you. I think value is important. I think quality and value are important for consumers.
[00:44:58] And then who’s behind the brand is, is [00:45:00] like the last thing. But like, I do think you’re right about that. I think that’s gonna be a major function of, of, uh, who wins and who loses in this market.
[00:45:08]Bryan Fields: I think
[00:45:08]Kellan Finney: ultimately the legal market wins, right? I mean, you look at mature states, California’s probably the exception, but I think once the rest of the country kind of adopts their own legal rules and develops our own supply chains, California’s, uh, legacy market will be in a.
[00:45:24] Much worse off position. Right. I think just people like get, it’s a lot easier to go to a store that you know is gonna be open at a set amount of time. Right. And I understand that these bodegas and everything, but they’ll shut ’em down and like after three years, like. It, it’s just like time, right? Like time is on the regulatory side and it’s not on the traditional
[00:45:42]Jesse Campoamor: side.
[00:45:43] That’s that. Right? And look, there, there is legislation that, that the state is, is holding up right now. I’m not sure why, but there’s legislation ready to go to to enhance Enfor enforcement. We can go after the landlords, right? I tell people this story all the time. There was a time where you can go down to Canal Street and buy a knockoff [00:46:00] Gucci bag, right?
[00:46:00] In a brick and mortar retail store. Now, I can still do that, but now I got to walk down an alleyway. Somebody opens up a catalog, they open up a trunk, and I take the bag out of the trunk. No more brick and mortar retail. Why? In the early two thousands, Bloomberg, with the, with the designers, um, companies found a public ordinance law in New York.
[00:46:19] City That said that the landlords were responsible to know whether or not their commercial tenants were engaged with the sale of illicit goods, and if and whether they were aware or not. Once it was discovered, they could be fined a hundred thousand dollars a day. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:36]Kellan Finney: See that’s the kind thing that the
[00:46:38]Jesse Campoamor: regulatory is gonna do.
[00:46:39] how quickly shut that down, you know, you can’t, that’s it. It’s done . Totally. For the landlords. Cause the political, uh, guys, nobody wants to line up black and brown folks and put them in handcuffs for cannabis anymore. Right? Like, that is politically unattainable. We can’t do that anymore. Yeah. That’s
[00:46:54]Bryan Fields: kind of like the biggest, that’s the kind of crutch dilemma of like trying to tamper down.
[00:46:59] But also [00:47:00] exactly like you said, trying not to, to, to.
[00:47:05]Jesse Campoamor: Just find them, I guarantee you start finding them a hundred thousand dollars a day. This show will be overnight. It’ll be done To your point’s not wrong. I started seizing products and the next day these guys are open. Right? Like I, I see it in my neighborhood.
[00:47:18] It happened. They seize the product literally the next day. The shelves are restocked. They’re, they’re operational, so that’s not gonna get it done. No,
[00:47:25]Bryan Fields: the stores are nice. They are , they’re nice. Like let’s just call what it’s like. They’re, they’re nice store. Like, Hey, whoever built out those store spent serious
[00:47:34]Jesse Campoamor: time, what are you gonna do?
[00:47:35] You live in Long Island that you guys opted out.
[00:47:37]Bryan Fields: There’s no retail in you. I’m a, I’m a medical patient, thank God. I pay over a arm and a foot for, um, for some
[00:47:43]Jesse Campoamor: product. Look, the other thing I’ll say is we think 40% of the market’s gonna be delivery, right? Like, there’s gonna be a world where like, I can open up my phone.
[00:47:51] Boo boo, boo boo. Just like. When somebody’s at my door in 30 minutes with, with my medicine, I wish
[00:47:56]Bryan Fields: that was today, Jesse. I wish that was today. ,
[00:47:59]Jesse Campoamor: it’s [00:48:00] around the corner. Right? And I think quite frankly, I think our generation is not gonna wanna go into a store at often, right? Like, once you know what you like, you know where it is, is at a good price point.
[00:48:09] You’re just gonna want, you’re just gonna want the convenience of it coming to you. And the personalization of the, of them knowing what you like. And so, you know, look, all these advancements, I think New York State with its academic institutions like Columbia and some, and some of these fine academic institutions with some of the culture that we have, uh, you know, fusing all those things together from an r and d, from a creative standpoint.
[00:48:33] What’s better? What can be better? And it’s such a big consumer base. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m really excited if you can’t tell, um, but there’s gonna be some kinks that we have to, to, to, to hammer out, and I think that’s what these next years are gonna gonna unfold for us.
[00:48:48]Bryan Fields: When you got started in your cannabis journey, what did you get?
[00:48:50] Right? And most importantly, what did you get wrong?
[00:48:53]Jesse Campoamor: Hmm. Well, what we got wrong was, um, trying to, trying to. [00:49:00] Look, I think sometimes when government, you try to pick winners and losers before, before the game’s even begun, right? And I think the problem with that from a bureau bureaucratic standpoint is we don’t have a crystal ball.
[00:49:11] And so you really don’t know how things are gonna unfold. And so for, for an example, one of the things that we were going back and forth on delivery on was. Whether we should create zones and limit, uh, each license to zip code, so to geographic areas. And I think what we realize is, is that we are, sometimes you have to let the market kind of figure these things out.
[00:49:30] Let the market determine who is gonna be the best operator on delivery, right? Who can, and that’s really figuring out by who has the best product, the most affordable product, and can be consistent on, on delivery of time as quick as possible, right? Those are the guys that people are gonna use and what rise to the top.
[00:49:47] And so for us it was how do we protect the small guy from being able to do. Before they, before the weed maps and the, the, the, the Uber eats, the uber weeds of the worlds come in and dominate. Right. And so what we [00:50:00] did is we said let’s cap at 25 FTE e full-time equivalent. And by the way, Weedmaps, the big guys, gave us that recommendation.
[00:50:08] They said, why don’t you cap the employees that way? You give these guys a running start. And I think what, what, what we understood, and this is the part I think we did well, was understanding that the market on day one is gonna look very different than the marketing year five. And not having the expectations of, oh, everything has to be figured out on day.
[00:50:28] things are gonna have to play themselves out. Competition is good. Competition forces creativity. This is, this is a market that rewards creativity. It rewards people that think on their feet and are, and know how to work around different problems. Um, and so we just have to have let that happen. We have to, you know, almost a survival of the fittest.
[00:50:46] I think what the, the burden on the state, on the regulat. is to try to create a, a level of enough playing ground, an even an even level enough playing ground where the smaller guys have a fighting chance. And I think that’s what the focus you’re [00:51:00] seeing from the state is like, let’s give these guys a running start so that maybe they have a chance to build something of value.
[00:51:06] Um, so let’s see how that plays out. I, I, I think, I think that’s a good example of the question. You’re. ,
[00:51:12]Bryan Fields: before we do predictions, we ask all of our guests, if you could sum up your experience in a main takeaway or lesson learned to pass onto the next generation, what would it be? Hmm. Could be life advice.
[00:51:26]Jesse Campoamor: If you, you can’t, if you don’t share it, you can’t keep it. I think too often people are gatekeepers or they wanna hold on for desperate because it’s their thing and they care about it. But the reality is, unless you share it, unless you educate others, unless you bring other people on board, you’re not gonna protect it or preserve it.
[00:51:42] It will die with you. It will go on with you if you don’t share it. And so if you really want to keep it, you have to share it. Um, and I think that’s a good piece of advice for.
[00:51:52]Bryan Fields: It’s really well said. Alright, prediction time, Jesse. It’s 2028. What does the New York [00:52:00] adult use cannabis market look like in
[00:52:02]Jesse Campoamor: 2028?
[00:52:03] 2028? In 2028? Happy monkey groups like Happy Monkey have. 20 stores in Manhattan, another 20 in the Bronx. And where else, wherever else they wanna have it. Long Island Social consumption is, you know, social consumption sites are places of creativity. Uh, and, um, we have over 5 million, uh, sales of, of, of, uh, of quality product in the streets.
[00:52:31] You know, this becomes the epicenter of, of cannabis. We’re no longer cultivating in New York, I think cultivation we shouldn’t be cultivating in 52 states, right? Like, we don’t make bourbon in 50 states in America, right? There’s no reason why we should be making cannabis in every state. Um, and so I think, you know, New York becomes the, the top market, the number one market in the world, um, passing, passing California and everywhere else.
[00:52:55] That’s what I, that’s what I predict Ke.
[00:52:58]Bryan Fields: I think in five [00:53:00] years you see the
[00:53:01]Kellan Finney: first global cannabis brand out of New York. Um, whether that’s Hacky Monkey or another player that’s currently involved in the industry right now. But I do think, uh, as much as a Colorado boy I am, um, I do think that New York, New York is the financial and cultural epicenter of the world.
[00:53:19] And I think
[00:53:20]Bryan Fields: having cannabis
[00:53:22]Kellan Finney: legal there is gonna do massive. It’s just gonna. It’s gonna change the cultural stigmas surrounding cannabis globally, just it by miles. Right? And I think that that provides the opportunity for, uh, a New Yorker to create the first global cannabis brand. So I think the first global cannabis brand has come out in New York, and it’s being sold across the world.
[00:53:44] What do
[00:53:44]Bryan Fields: you think, Brian? I think 2028. We’ve got one. We’ve got one big issue that’s gonna come up first. I think we’re gonna have a, a major lawsuit that comes down and I think that lawsuit allows for way more people to come into the space, which increases [00:54:00] the, the dispensaries and the opportunities and the supply and demand across the, the industry.
[00:54:04] But I think that’s beneficial because I think that really hurts the traditional market and puts those stores outta business. And I think then the consumer wins. They get more access to product. Specifically the medicine we talked about, and it gives them more of a chance for the competition. Like you said, Jesse, for the strong to survive and for that, I think we need to have more stores, more availability and more access points so that the consumer can be more educated.
[00:54:24] And unfortunately, I believe that we’ll have to have a lawsuit first because this is New York and. problems, had money works.
[00:54:32]Jesse Campoamor: Those, those guys, those are some great predictions, man. Cool. So, so, Jesse, ball over there. What’s, what’s going on? , just glad you didn’t take our, that would’ve been tough.
[00:54:44]Bryan Fields: So, for our listeners, they wanna get in touch, they wanna learn more.
[00:54:46] Where can they find you?
[00:54:48]Jesse Campoamor: Uh, I’m on Twitter at Jesse Jesse Campo Moore, j e s s e, uh, Campo Moore. Uh, or, or look at my website, Campo aor and sons.com. Campo moore and [00:55:00] sons.com. Um, any way to reach me there? I’m on Instagram by my name, um, and they wanna follow up with you. I, you, we can find a way to plug us in, but I’m happy to, happy to talk to anybody.
[00:55:10] Any friend of yours is a friend of. I love what you guys are doing. I think you guys are having the right conversations, the real conversations really appreciate, you know, guys giving me the time to talk to you guys. Uh, and um, I’m here
[00:55:22]Bryan Fields: anytime. I appreciate that. We’ll only get up on the show. This was fun.
[00:55:24] Thanks for taking the time. Yeah, appreciate
[00:55:26]Jesse Campoamor: your time. Appreciate you guys. Thank you brother. Hey,
[00:55:29]Bryan Fields: thank you.
