In 2021, New York state officially legalized recreational marijuana, with the passage of the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act. The MRTA set a goal of awarding half of all licenses to “social and economic equity” applicants: women, people of color, service-disabled veterans, distressed farmers and residents of overpoliced communities.

In March 2022, the state announced it would give the first licenses to sell recreational marijuana in New York to individuals or family members of individuals who had been convicted of a marijuana-related offense.
Among the early licensees was Leeann Mata, a lifelong resident of Brooklyn with a hemp license and a burgeoning business selling CBD products. Her father and three of her five brothers all had faced marijuana charges. But she almost didn’t apply. “I didn’t think I’d get it, so I literally waited until the last minute to apply,” she recalled. “The morning the applications were due, I jumped out of bed and went to the post office and mailed it.”

When she learned she was one of the first recipients of a license she was thrilled. However, the rollout of the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries, or CAURD, program faced significant hurdles. In August 2023, a group of veterans filed a lawsuit against New York’s Office of Cannabis Management, arguing that by prioritizing individuals with convictions and their families, the state had violated the law. This legal challenge resulted in an injunction that halted the opening of new dispensaries in certain areas, including Brooklyn, where Mata was planning to open her store.

The injunction remained in place until November 2023, when the Office of Cannabis Management, reached a settlement with the plaintiffs, clearing the way for Mata to open Matawana Dispensary this past February. Situated at a former bank site on 14th Street and Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, Matawana Dispensary became the sixth legal establishment of its kind in Brooklyn and marked a milestone as the first in the borough owned by a Black person and by a woman.

In this Q&A with ICSC Small Business Center contributing editor Rebecca Meiser, Mata reflected on the arduous journey to obtaining her license and shared the motivations behind her application, the proliferation of illicit cannabis stores across the city and her hopes for the future.

How did you get into the field of cannabis?

I was teaching for the board of ed when COVID hit. A lot of teachers were getting sick and passing away. I had young kids. I couldn’t be one of these teachers, so I pivoted and got my CBD license. The idea started with my mom, who had been addicted to opioid pills. She suffered from a lot of pain. What I started doing was making a CBD tea for her. Then I started making a CBD rub for her. I saw how it was helping her and it was weaning her off those pain medicines because with the CBD, she didn’t need the pain medicine, she didn’t need the sleep aids. She didn’t need [opioids] to help her. Once I saw what it was doing for her, I thought: “She’s not the only one.” I wanted to help all of the seniors that were in close proximity to me, whether it was my friends’ moms or grandmothers. Then I started my online store, and I did $10,000 in sales in my first six months. I got my vendor’s license too and went to so many events. For instance, I was the only one selling CBD products legally on Labor Day on Eastern Parkway. We did about $10,000 in sales that day. You name it, I had it, from brownies to cookies to cream rub to lip gloss to potato chips to juice.

What made you decide to apply for a CAURD license?

Once the application came out for the card, I thought: “I have to apply.” I have five brothers, and three of them had marijuana charges. The one that hit the hardest was my brother [who] was raising me at the time he got locked up. He was paying all the bills and he was working for a grocery store, and he got stopped. He had a couple of joints on him and a box cutter that he was using because he was working in a store, actually cutting up boxes. They locked him up for a couple of months. It’s not like he was out here selling the weed. He was literally just using it because he had anxiety and it was helping, self-medicating.

After that experience, some people would want nothing to do with opening a dispensary. What made you want to?

I knew what the plant meant to people, how it could help. If I educated people on the plant, then this would give them the opportunity to heal, too. People see marijuana and just think: “Oh, you smoking a joint.” They don’t see that people are taking it because they’re in pain. They’re taking it maybe because they need help sleeping. I actually had several cancer patients that were using my CBD product and one of them passed away and a family member came to me and said: “You made her last days so bearable.”

Did you have any background in business?

I have a bachelor’s and a master’s in business, and I have a master’s in education.

How did the lawsuit against the Office of Cannabis Management and the ensuing injunction affect your business starting?

They finally just came to an agreement in November of this year, but before then, I was rattling my brain. My [CBD] career was over because I put everything into this [dispensary]. I didn’t know when I would be allowed to open and saw all these illicit shops opening. I’m literally in counseling now because of the whole experience.

The monetary value of a license is likely well into seven figures, but without financing or real estate you can’t get your operation started. Did you have lots of people trying to reach out to you, trying to get in with you?

When I first started looking for storefronts, investors were swarming like sharks every single day. One guy invited me to his store. He was like: “My store is already built out. I’ll give you 51%, I’ll take 49% and you go on lay on a beach somewhere and forget your name. Forget ever even running a company. This is how we’re going to streamline it.” And I was like: “Why would I do that?

In December 2022, Housing Works opened the first legal weed store in New York City: Housing Works Cannabis. Soon after, Housing Works launched a CAURD Community Initiative to provide education, resources, connection and support to dispensary owners. You were one of the first members of the initiative. How has it helped you?

They’ve helped streamline everything. They helped me find the location and an investor. They helped make sure that the buildout went the way I wanted it and getting open. They were also really helpful in terms of making sure that I met all the requirements, making sure I get a cannabis bank account, making sure that we were complying with OCM because they want a lot. Everything from your taxes for the last two years to even, when you get in the location, the walkthrough.

There are a lot of restrictions on where dispensaries can be located. For instance, no retail dispensary storefronts are permitted within 500 feet of school grounds or 200 feet of a house of worship. And the municipality has to approve cannabis businesses. How did you end up being located in a former Chase bank branch in Brooklyn, and why did you want to be there?

Part of your success depends on other businesses wanting you there. I spoke to a lot of the bars and the local businesses, and they were like: “We need you. We don’t want these illicit shops in our area.” There was clearly a need here, but before I took the location, I sat outside and spent like six hours just watching the traffic, watching the demographics. I was watching who would walk past, who was smoking a joint, and I was like: “This is home for me.”

What were some of your biggest struggles in opening?

There were not clear guidelines from OCM, even for little things like what you were able to display on the windows and what colors you could use. Our logo wasn’t allowed on. It made no sense. They said I couldn’t use colors, but the logo didn’t have any colors. It was actually a silhouette. It’s just a lot of little things that make it harder. Your hands are literally tied when it comes to marketing. You can’t have radio ads or billboards. Your signage has to be a certain size, and it can’t have colors that would be attractive to minors. Meanwhile, the illicit shops have these neon lights and big fonts, and people don’t always know that they’re not going to one of the legal dispensaries.

What did you do? how do you get the word out?

Well, thank God, I was the first Black Brooklyn woman-owned dispensary. That came with some publicity. But you also have to be creative. Last night, I was at an event for all of Fifth Avenue small businesses. I’m trying to help with the businesses on Fifth Avenue, and we’re all going to promote each other within our establishments.

What might people not know about running a dispensary?

The quarantine process of cannabis. What makes us different than illegal shops is our cannabis has to be tested. A processor cannot give us a product that’s not tested, and if they do and we find out or OCM finds out, we have to quarantine the product. We have to make sure the product does not get into consumers’ hands. We remove it from the shelves, and we literally seal it in something. And then the company comes and they incinerate it.

Have you had that happen yet?

Yes, we have product in quarantine right now, as we speak, and it was a substantial amount. I honestly agree with the quarantine. It’s just now, I have to find a vendor to replace that those products.

So what does the quarantine look like? What do you have to do? Do you get your money back?

We’re on net 30, [which means payment for the product is due within 30 days of the invoice date], so we didn’t have to shell out money and they have to eat that cost because they didn’t follow the regulations.

All of your cannabis products have to be grown, processed and packaged in New York. How have customers looked at that?

Some of the product smells fresh like it just was cut down, and a lot of consumers are not educated about fresh products. We literally have to be like: “Oh [New York-produced weed] doesn’t smell as strong as what you know.” We have to educate them about getting fresh, quality products that are not coming from other states. It’s coming from New York state with different regulations. This cannabis smells a little more grassy, a little more earthy. So a lot of people were looking for that strong cannabis smell where[as] we’re giving them more earthy cannabis.

Since you opened in February, do you notice people coming consistently throughout the day?

There’s a flow throughout the day, but our largest time is from when people get off work until 8. Because of that, we recently changed our hours. We were only doing till 8. Now we’re staying open till 9 and on the weekends 10.  All the bars we’re working with, though, are open till 12. And the need is there then, too, so we’re just trying to figure it all out.

Do you have a sense of when you might be profitable?

We’ve done about 100 sales a day so far, but nope, no idea on profitability. Competing with the illicit shops is the hardest thing right now. Literally, in a three-block radius, there’s at least five or six of them, and they can market and we can’t. If you Google “dispensary” right now, every illegal shop in New York state is going to come up. You would hardly see any legal shops, and that’s a big problem.

At the start of 2023, New York City had one legal dispensary and about 1,400 illegal ones. Some people have posited it’s because there was confusion about who should be in charge of enforcement. Why is there such a proliferation of illicit shops?

Good question. I would like to know that because I’m paying taxes and I had to jump through hoops and regulations to even get open.

Where do you want to be in five and 10 years?

In five years, I want to have three dispensaries and three consumption lounges in areas where the need is. In 10 years, my goal is to build a community of women-owned cannabis businesses. Women in general make up about 1% of the cannabis field. This is a male-dominant field. If we could educate and bring more women of all ethnicities into this field, I think [more of the public] wouldn’t look at marijuana as just a drug. I think they might look at it as medicine and also a way of life.

Why are so few women in the industry?

The lack of education around it, as well as the lack of support for women. Since we’re still classifying [marijuana] as a drug, as a mom of three, I would never want, for instance, to be put in a position where I can feel like I’m being jeopardized as being a mom and not taking care of my responsibilities. So with that red line, a lot of women are scared.

If someone wanted to own a dispensary, what advice would you give them?

Do their research, and don’t get into it if you’re doing it just for the money. Wherever location they’re deciding on, go to the community, not just the community board but the local stores. Survey your area. Go during the day and night and just make sure that you know you support the community that you want to support you.