Bed-Stuy Weed Biz Talk Gets Real About New Industry

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — Chris Torres found a lot of success in the underground weed business. He once ran a successful delivery service in New York City and went on to farm the plant in the California mountains.

And on Thursday night, he plans on sharing that experience — dirt and all!

On Thursday, Feb. 2, Ayr Wellness is hosting panel called Becoming A Cannabis Entrepreneur at 6 p.m. at 677 Lafayette Ave.

Torres had a long journey to success.

He was born in Elmhurst, but grew up in East New York.

When attending college, he was kicked out for selling the then-maligned flower.

A year later, he was laid off from a job with Verizon during the Great Recession, and soon after, Torres was homeless.

"So what was my go-to? Selling weed."

Torres said over the next two years, he worked up to 18 hours a day delivering weed on a bike to people he knew across the city. Soon, he got more business and hired others to deliver with him. After two years of working around the clock, Torres was making big bucks.

"I started my delivery business with seven grams of sour diesel that I bought off of my friend for $135," Torres said, "and I turned that into a six-figure business within two years."

Torres is what the legal industry calls a "legacy operator," and represents the type of entrepreneur that officials hope will be a part of the new legalized industry in New York City.

He even has experience with large-scale cultivation, having spent a few years growing cannabis in Humboldt County, California — an experience full of fits and starts before he found the right people with the skills needed to grow a great crop.

A local guy Torres hired who had watched them struggle with the complex endeavor told him "that we should have had a show follow us, just for comedic relief on the industry," Torres recalled. "It was three guys from New York, on the side of a mountain in Humboldt County, trying to figure out how to cultivate weed. It was hilarious. It was funny. "

"But it was also wrenching on my finances," Torres added.

After a few years of successful crops, oversupply of the green goddess in California triggered a plummet in price that convinced Torres to head back east.

And now he is eager to share his experience — and to enter the legitimate market, which for the time being is closed off to him and other legacy operators who don't meet the current requirements for cannabis licenses, which includes a drug arrest.

Current requirements, Torres says, boxes out many successful legacy weed businesses that would love to operate legitimately, but instead continue on the black market.

"They're the ones offering interesting and unique plants," Torres says, adding that big dispensaries are already moving in who all offer pretty similar product.

To be successful, Torres said, you have to be able to offer a unique product and make it "a boutique experience."

And to know your market.

"It's like wine — or like running a restaurant: you aren't gonna open the same place in the West Village as you would in Bed-Stuy."

"I hope the [Office of Cannabis Management] does a lot more to to include the legacy, the legacy market in in the cannabis industry so that they won't have the same issues that all these other states have," Torres said, where he says many states still have a black market much larger than the legal one.

The OCM, a state office only a year old, told Patch that regulations for expanded licensing is currently in the works and should hit the streets by the summer. A spokesperson also said they share Torres' goal of bringing in as many legacy operators as possible, recognizing that New York has had a thriving cannabis industry for 100 years, despite prior prohibitions.

But above all, Torres says his main advice for those looking to enter the cannabis market is to "do your research," he said.

"Learn learn as much as you possibly can about the industry, about the plant and about your target audience."