Leafly, a cannabis discovery marketplace and educational resource, is expanding its support of the legal New York cannabis market with a new alliance with the New York Cannabis Retail Association (NYCRA), a non-profit coalition of New York dispensary owners united under the slogan ‘Collaboration Over Competition.’ The partnership aims to help create a more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive cannabis industry.
Together, Leafly and NYCRA will sponsor a series of industry events in 2024 and implement marketing initiatives designed to strengthen New Yorkers' awareness of the importance of buying legal and local cannabis. New Yorkers can directly support their local economy by shopping for legal weed that is grown, cultivated, tested and sold in the great state of New York. Legal cannabis creates sustainable jobs throughout the supply chain and provides tax revenues that support community initiatives.
“The operating environment in the Empire State for legal cannabis retailers has been formidable and the continued proliferation of unlicensed retailers in New York creates unfair competition for licensed retailers and confusion for cannabis consumers,” says Yoko Miyashita, CEO of Leafly.
“As the first cannabis marketplace to operate in New York, we have seen first-hand the struggles legal cannabis businesses face in a challenging regulatory environment and unfair competition from thousands of unlicensed operators who sell unregulated cannabis to New Yorkers and tourists alike,” says Miyashita. “Simply put, retailers deserve to operate in a fair and competitive marketplace and the citizens of New York deserve access to safe products and information to make informed purchasing decisions.”
NYCRA was co-founded by New York Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries Recipients (CAURD) license holders Jayson Tantalo, Brittni Tantalo & Coss Marte. The non-profit organization offers New York dispensary owners a private network that shares resources with licensees as they prepare to join the legal market.
“New Yorkers need to know that when they shop with licensed dispensaries, they not only know what they are consuming, but they’re also directly supporting their community,” says Jayson Tantalo, co-founder and Vice President of Operations of NYCRA. “We are working tirelessly to ensure that legal cannabis is represented the right way in New York and we couldn’t be happier to partner with Leafly to further raise awareness within the community.”
