AACE UPDATE: Alan Ao of Vigor / New Jersey

Much has happened in the last year, when we last spoke to Dr. Alan Ao, he was preparing to enter the New Jersey cannabis market. Since 2021, Alan and his wife have received a singular retail class 5 license from the NJ Cannabis Regulatory Commission - Ophelia Chong

Since we last talked Alan, you have made big moves in NJ, tell us about what has happened since then.

My wife and I received our conditional class 5 retail licenses from the NJ Cannabis Regulatory Commission a few weeks ago. We still need to convert the conditional license into an annual license to become fully operational. We're actively working to secure local support from our host community. We submitted our request for application (RFA) to the township in mid-August and are currently waiting to hear back. In the meantime, we're focusing on building the basic backbone of the retail business: logo/branding, website design and SEO optimization building a social media presence, dispensary design, local marketing efforts, and getting to know our future customers on a more personal level. Lastly, we're developing personal relationships and communication with as many class 1 cultivators and class 2 processors as possible to begin forming some semblance of a supply chain for the near future.

In an adjacent vein, the new cohort of the Minority Cannabis Academy will be starting in late Jan/early Feb! It's been amazing seeing the pilot program this past year place many of our students in plant-touching roles since their graduation in September. I'm excited to get back into the classroom and into live teaching. In addition to that, I've worked as the course director for the Society of Cannabis Clinicians to develop an ACPE-accredited educational module specifically geared towards pharmacists called Cannabis Pharmacy: The Modernization of a Novel Healthcare Industry. The course is live now and provides 4 CE credits for licensed pharmacists.

What are you most excited about in the New York market?

The opportunity in NY is going to be enormous. There are millions of tourists returning to NY filling up Broadway theatre seats and over-paying for Applebee's in Times Square. Beyond that, there are still 8+ million residents in NYC alone looking for a corner-store dispensary to call their own. The culture, tolerance, and acceptance of cannabis is already here. Numerous speak-easy type consumption lounges infused dining experiences, and open public consumption habits are being engrained as a part of daily living throughout NYC and beyond.

From the state regulatory perspective, the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) seemingly has a strong focus on social equity with a $200M New York Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund for future operators. In addition, the first groups being awarded conditional adult-use retail dispensary (CAURD) licenses are those who have been negatively impacted by the failed war on drugs, giving them the first opportunity for reparative justice. NY has also joined many other states in their fight to decouple 280E tax laws from state/federal jurisdictions as well as a push for regional interstate commerce of cannabis. That's just a small list of things to be excited for from our neighbors across the river.

Where do you see the pitfalls for people just entering the dispensary business?

I've seen a lot of ego and impatience. I've met many people entering this space thinking it's going to be an easy ride on "the green rush". It's not just ordinary Joes but people that have successfully run other businesses and are looking for different opportunities. They're appalled at the red tape, bureaucracy, and uncertainty that we're all facing just to simply get a single store launched. It's extremely frustrating at times not working within your own anticipated timelines when it comes to forecasting for capital raises, budgeting, and giving enough buffer space for the unknowns that are completely out of our control. After working in NJ's industry for over 4 years, I've seen how slow things tend to move. From an outsider perspective, my advice is to make sure they severely curb expectations for themselves as well as potential investors to how/when things will happen.

Any advice for APIs entering the industry?

We need to collectively organize and learn how to communicate with each other effectively, candidly, and in unity for one trajectory. As a first-generation Asian-American, I often reminisce about the immovable support network that my parents developed with others that shared similar backgrounds and cultures as they had while newly coming to this country. Granted they were dealing with a much different set of societal issues at the time, but their purpose was always to work hard and provide a better life for the next generation. Working in the cannabis industry is already a tumultuous journey so if we have the opportunity to help other API's in this space to save time, money, or energy based on our own travels, it should be our prerogative to do so. Take the proverbial "tea" that represents a deep-rooted Chinese tradition and turn it into meaningful strategic conversations instead of just gossip. We need to be able to share ideas, celebrate each other’s victories, and memorialize the stories of how we arrived in this industry to actively encourage others to do the same. Our voice and representation will become exponentially louder with numbers, but it has to start with a willingness to talk and work with each other.