City’s First Recreational Canna-Biz To Open Jan. 10

Cannabis consumers aged 21 and up will be able to purchase legal joints, vape cartridges and marijuana flower at a Whalley Avenue medical dispensary come Jan. 10 — now that the state has signed off on the city’s first retailer of adult-use recreational weed selling to more than just patients.

The medical cannabis dispensary set to soon become a hybrid medical-recreational outfit is Affinity Health and Wellness Medical Marijuana at 1351 Whalley Ave.

On Friday morning, the state Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) announced that a short list of licensed medical dispensaries across Connecticut — including Affinity — will be able to begin legally selling recreational cannabis starting Jan. 10. Read the press release in full here.

A total of nine medical marijuana dispensaries based out of Branford, Torrington, Newington, Stamford, Willimantic, Danbury, Montville, Meriden, and, yes, New Haven have been approved to open their doors not just to patients, but also to recreational users, no earlier than 10 a.m., or as local zoning permits, on that Tuesday morning.

“We’re really excited about the start of the program,” Affinity founder Ray Pantalena told the Independent Friday afternoon. Pantalena founded that Whalley Avenue medical dispensary in 2019. In 2023, he will become the first recreational retailer in New Haven. Read about the City Plan Commission’s decision to approve Pantalena’s new hybrid business model in early November here.

“It’s been a lot of hard work,” Pantalena said of the state’s cannabis legalization process, ​“but I think DCP [the Department of Consumer Protection] was really thoughtful in everything they did.”

Friday’s news follows a Tuesday vote taken by the state’s Social Equity Council to permit all existing medical marijuana producers who applied and met the necessary requirements to earn hybrid licenses — or licenses that allow retailers to sell recreational products so long as they continue distributing medical marijuana — to expand their clientele base come the new year. 

That vote was contingent on certain local supply-chain factors, such as the establishment of at least 250,000 square feet of growing and manufacturing space within the state. That latter law was key in ensuring that enough marijuana exists within Connecticut to continue providing medicine for those who need it even as dispensaries start welcoming recreational users into their deliberately discreet facilities.

Though the vote was taken by the Social Equity Council, Pantalena, a Madison-based pharmacist, is not a social equity applicant. 

However, he is already planning to take advantage of the state’s social equity regulations to build new branches of Affinity Wellness, including additional dispensaries in New Haven under his ownership, by serving as a financial backer for aspiring pot-repreneurs considered by the state to have been significantly harmed by the War on Drugs. 

That means Pantalena will only have to pay half the price of a hybrid license — $500,000 rather than $1 million — every time he opens another dispensary location so long as a social equity applicant controls at least 65 percent of the joint venture. Pantalena said that he is working towards opening at least five additional dispensaries across the state with social equity partners in the near future.

In the meantime, Pantalena has hired 20 new employees and renovated the interior of his Whalley Avenue dispensary to accommodate what will likely be a flood of new customers this January.

The state has ​“given us a 30-day notice to button up the last couple of things that need to be done,” Pantalena said, admitting that he had already prepared the necessary changes far before the state determined a collective grand opening date. He purchased his store on Whalley Avenue in 2019 specifically because it had enough excess room to expand once cannabis was fully legalized. He converted that extra space into new check-out lanes and security stops this past fall to abide by state rules necessitating segregation of the physical pathways taken by those purchasing medical versus recreational cannabis.

For now, Pantalena said, only flower, pre-rolls and vape cartridges will likely be available to customers in January as producers develop new packaging and labels for other products such as edible gummies or chocolate, items which will remain strictly available to medical patients. Sales will also be limited to a quarter ounce of cannabis flower once the market opens — medical patients, on the other hand, are allowed to purchase up to five ounces each month.

Overall, Pantalena said, ​“It took a little longer than most people wanted — but we’re just super excited to finally see it coming.”