New Brunswick

With a festive interior, smiling budtenders, a clever name and a bright-beaked seabird as a mascot, Puffin is designed to blow away long-held stereotypes about cannabis and the people who use it.

Nathan Yanovitch, the founder and CEO of the cannabis dispensary at 382 George St., says there’s a whimsical aesthetic complete with wall murals and an inviting vibe awaiting customers at the dispensary’s grand opening on Wednesday, Sept. 6.

Saturday marked another first for the New Jersey cannabis industry – the grand opening of the Garden State's first standalone retail dispensary, Earth & Ivy, in New Brunswick.

Earth & Ivy is not a medical treatment center and can’t fulfill state Medicinal Cannabis Program orders from doctors, but medical marijuana patients will receive a discount.

The two new adult-use cannabis retailers are Earth & Ivy, in New Brunswick, and Nova Farms, in Woodbury.

The Woodbury store is located in an “impact zone,” designated by the New Jersey government as a municipality “disproportionately affected by the War on Drugs for particular consideration in New Jersey’s burgeoning cannabis market.”

“Over the last two years we have grown the number of (medical marijuana dispensaries) open to patients and overseen several of them through to expansion into recreational cannabis,” CRC executive director Jeff Brown said in a statement.

Earth & Ivy, a recreational dispensary founded by three student-athlete alumni from the University of Pennsylvania, is set to open its doors in New Brunswick.

Located at 355 George St., the storefront will begin welcoming customers May 20 following a 9:45 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Puffin, a small New Jersey-based company whose applications to dispense cannabis has been approved by New Brunswick and the state through the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, will be opening its first location in the city.

The dispensary, which will set up inside the former Verizon store at 382 George St., is hoping to open its doors by late spring.

Puffin, whose sly word-play name conjures images of a long drag on a joint or pipe, but uses the bright-nosed seabird as a corporate logo, will likely count its fair share of Rutgers students among its clientele.

According to the latest Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released Monday and conducted in partnership with researchers Nathan Link of Rutgers University – Camden and Jordan Hyatt of Drexel University, when asked where they would like to see tax revenue generated from cannabis sales spent, half of New Jerseyans agreed that the state should invest in education and public health initiatives.

Consider two towns in Middlesex County, New Brunswick and East Brunswick. In New Brunswick, more than three-quarters of residents voted in favor of legalization, the majority of the population is made up of minorities, and the median household income is below the state average, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. In nearby East Brunswick, close to two-thirds of residents voted in favor of legalization, the population is white majority, and the median household income is above $100,000.

New Brunswick allows the sale of recreational marijuana; East Brunswick banned it.

City Council members last week introduced an ordinance setting tax rates at 1 percent for wholesalers and 2 percent for other cannabis classes.

The ordinance is scheduled to come for a public hearing and final vote at the City Council’s 5:30 p.m. meeting on April 6 at City Hall, 78 Bayard St., New Brunswick.

Under the ordinance, cannabis cultivators, manufacturers and retailers will be taxed at 2 percent of the receipts from each sale and cannabis wholesalers will be taxed at one percent of the receipts from each sale, according to a public notice.

The city has endorsed eight applications to open recreational marijuana businesses here.

The next step is for the applicants to obtain approval from the state.

The applicants approved for licenses are Earth & Ivy, Puffin Store, Maryjayne's Touch, NB Green Delivery, LBOZ, NBFC, DC Vitality and Fathom Cannabis, according to a public notice.

The city is permitting cannabis retailers in CAN-RD zones. The city is supporting Earth & Ivy, 355 George St.; Puffin Store, 382 George St. and Maryjayne's Touch, 70 Easton St. for retail licenses.

Demand for retail cannabis licenses in the city exceeds the supply, and New Brunswick is in the process of weeding through the applications now that the deadline to submit one has passed.

There were seven applications seeking the only cannabis license for New Brunswick’s Easton Avenue corridor, where Rutgers students tend to live, shop and dine, said Dan Dominguez, the director of the city’s department of planning, community and economic development.

Five more applications were made for the two cannabis licenses in the city’s downtown area, he said.