Atlantic City now has more weed shops than casinos, with dozens more on the way

ATLANTIC CITY — Inside Everest, Atlantic City’s newest marijuana dispensary — a Mount Everest-themed shop with Tibetan prayer flags lining its ceiling and mounted black and white photos of the Steel Pier left from the check cashing shop it replaced — assistant manager Steven Parrish is making the case for why the shop will succeed.

Everest is the 12th cannabis shop to open in Atlantic City; MPX on New York Avenue debuted in April 2023. Which means there are now three more weed shops in the town’s 48 blocks than there are casinos. And many more might be on the way.

Two dozen additional locations have been approved by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, a state agency that has planning oversight of Atlantic City’s tourism district, and a dozen more applications are in the pipeline seeking approval.

“Friendly competition is always good,” said Parrish, an outgoing Atlantic City native who bounces with exuberance and has previously worked at two other dispensaries in town. He noted the irony of a career path of someone who sold a bit of weed as a kid. “I’m selling weed now and it comes with a receipt,” he said.

Parrish landed happily at Everest, at 1226 Atlantic Ave., where he’s getting a $60,000 salary, a 401(k), and health benefits. The competition, he said, “makes your customer service be exceptional.”

But is there too much growth? City leaders don’t seem to think so. In November, voters approved expanding the city’s so-called “green zone,” to extend westward on Kentucky and Albany Avenues, where AC Leef is itching to open a dispensary across from Bader Field.

The existing green zone covers Atlantic and Pacific Avenues, from Maryland to Boston Avenues, plus the entire Orange Loop, now home to MPX on St. James Place, the flower-muraled Peaches Garden on New York Avenue, and nearby Sweet Leafs Dispensary on South Tennessee Avenue, which animates a building next to Tata’s African Hair Braiding shop that was once the John Brooks Recovery Center. (Dispensaries are not allowed on the Boardwalk. The Botanist, a medical dispensary on the Boardwalk, has closed.)

“How many bars are there in a small radius?” Miguel Lugo, a partner in AC Leef, said in a recent interview while he was campaigning in favor of the expansion referendum that will allow him and partner Chris Aponte to open their dispensary on Albany Avenue across from Bader Field. “Look at the dollar stores, they’re everywhere. Business is business.”

Others, including some owners of established dispensaries, the Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce, and business owners like Johnny Exadaktilos of Ducktown Tavern, are less understanding about the proliferation of cannabis shops in the tourist town.

The chamber said it had “watched with growing concern as Atlantic City rushes headlong toward cannabis market saturation,” and “questioned the sustainability of the no-limit approach,” and whether it “fundamentally misunderstands Atlantic City’s appeal and tourism potential.”

Lou Freedman, owner of Legal Distribution, a dispensary at the other end of the green zone at 3112 Atlantic Ave., calls the situation “ridiculous.” Legal Distribution caters to locals in nearby Ventnor and Margate, towns that have banned cannabis shops.

With PPP (Puff Puff Pass) Dispensary about to open across Atlantic Avenue, and Sunny Tien and Bakin Bad just down the street, he’ll have three competing dispensaries within about a block.

“It’s a mess,” says Freedman, who also owns Bocca Coal Fired Bistro in Margate. “We’re losing money every day.”

The Sunny Tien Dispensary operates out of a former fruit and vegetable shop on Atlantic Avenue. The Healing Side transformed an old cash-for-gold shop at 2415 Pacific Ave. The THC Shop at 1740 Atlantic Ave. (located blocks from the beach, hospital, and outlets, it boasts) replaced an old Popeyes, which moved up the block. Honey Buzz Farms, emphasizing casino deliveries, took the place of the old Casino City Barber Salon at 1724 Atlantic Ave. It’s now one of two dispensaries to open on a block-long strip plagued with illegal drug dealing.

Legal Distribution occupies a historic former Elks Lodge where in 1970, following a state police raid, Atlantic City’s police chief, an Elks member himself and frequenter of the Atlantic Avenue club, said he was shocked to find out there were illegal slot machines inside.

Five decades later, with legal gambling entrenched inside the city’s nine casinos, Atlantic City is turning to another once-illegal industry to bolster its economy: cannabis.

Like so much in New Jersey, the newly legalized cannabis industry is subject to numerous regulations, but it is up to each municipality to opt in or out, or to set a cap on the number of dispensaries. Freedman notes the dispensaries can’t sell food (though they do sell edibles, capped at 10 milligrams of THC per serving) and can’t even give customers a bottle of water.

Several, including Honey Buzz at 1724 Atlantic Ave. and High Rollers, one of two at or near the Claridge Hotel, along with Design 710, have consumption lounges ready to go, but are still waiting for the state to give the final go-ahead.

Freedman says people are investing in properties before they realize the prospects. “You get into it, and you find out what’s happening and you’re a half a million in the hole already.”

At Sunny Tien Dispensary, in the shadow of the Tropicana, where they’ve done collabs with Tony’s Baltimore Grill, and where a cushy consumption lounge is ready to go, general manager Spencer Belz is advocating for a moratorium.

“We understand that we see 30 million people a year here, which is fantastic,” he said. “But we think that the city should give all of us an opportunity to stabilize ourselves.”

Mayor Marty Small Sr. and his cannabis liaison, Kash McKinley, have welcomed the new investors to town.

The CRDA says it doesn’t cap the number of businesses, and has a role only to approve businesses that meet requirements. With typically only one member objecting each time, the CRDA has been approving multiple applications at almost every monthly meeting.

McKinley has said he wants to make Atlantic City a premiere East Coast cannabis hub, and Small says he would never discourage new businesses. The dispensaries pay as much as $25,000 a year to Atlantic City to get a mercantile license.

But Small also says there will likely be “a check on this.”

“We don’t want to oversaturate the market,” he said. “This is a new industry. No one’s where they want to be now.”

Individually, the 12 open dispensaries make the cases for themselves as positive additions to Atlantic City.

There have been no reports of loitering, Small notes, as there are in front of some liquor stores in town. Nearly all have renovated formerly vacant spaces. Dispensary owners, some local, others from as far away as California, are keen to contribute more to the city than just another legal spot to buy cannabis.

Honey Buzz’s location in a block that has long vexed police and city leaders for its illegal drug trade and intermittent gun violence, seems surreal. The block is now anchored by the popular El Tacuate Mexican restaurant, Honey Buzz in the middle, and the THC Shop on another corner.

Can the legal dispensary be a part of turning this troubled midtown street around?

Honey Buzz’s general manager, Dominic Caggese, thinks so. The illegal activity hasn’t stopped — “Absolutely not,” notes the security guard stationed in the vestibule out front, a former state police officer — but Caggese says Honey Buzz aims to be a positive addition to the community (in addition to mostly catering to tourists with casino deliveries).

“Our big thing will be art and music,” Caggese said. “The owners want to build up a community.”

Honey Buzz plans to partner with the Dunes Art Gallery in Brigantine, and the interior already pops with local artwork and murals.

Over at Everest, owners Manpreet “Gina” Gill and her husband, Jagdeep “Jag” Gill, are California-based, originally from India, having grown up in the foothills of the Himalayas. They are enthused about an East Coast beach town for their venture and also hoping to contribute to the community.

Gina Gill says she’s designating 10% of profits to Atlantic City’s public library and the Arts Foundation, and all tips during December are going to the Boys & Girls Club. She’d like to establish a Kumon Learning Center in town to help the city’s young people. Parrish, the manager, is planning the grand opening to include music, discounts, swag, and “educational goodies.”

Jaden Hernandez, 25, a budtender at Honey Buzz, said he has been part of Atlantic City’s weed community since he was 15 and that “even five years ago, you’d get in trouble.” He added, “I don’t think it’s feasible for 20 dispensaries to prosper. You still have the people on the street selling. They’ll even come in and buy stuff.”

With the state of New Jersey regulating prices, and sources of product, everyone agrees the street sellers can probably undercut the legal dispensaries. And with all the fees required by the city and state, some in the business think it’s just, in the words of Honey Buzz budtender (and former upholsterer) Earle Aiken, 54, “a great money grab,” to lure in investors who then “jump off a cliff.”

Monique Harvey, 56, a local hairdresser, wandered into Honey Buzz after shopping at the nearby outlets. She was intrigued by the delivery option and planned to spread the word. “This is crazy for us,” she said. “There’s like a dispensary on every corner. But I’m here for it. It’s the new fad.”

It’s a saturation of dispensaries that is impossible to ignore. If Monopoly were being invented now, they’d seriously have to consider adding little flower tokens to place along the Atlantic City streets of the game board right along with houses and hotels. But that hasn’t stopped the people who want to play.

Gill said each of the dispensaries will add to the city. “We’re all bringing our own story,” she said. “It seems like we’ll add to Atlantic City. As with any business, whoever will survive will survive.”