When Joanne Wilson decided to launch Gotham, her flagship cannabis dispensary in New York City, it wasn’t just another business move. It was the culmination of decades of experience in retail, investing, philanthropy, and culture, and a bold attempt to rewrite the narrative of cannabis in America’s most complicated market.

“I am the founder and CEO of Gotham,” Wilson told me. “And that is one section of my life.”

Sections, indeed. Wilson has been many things: a retail buyer out of college, a media entrepreneur in the early days of New York tech, a prolific angel investor with more than 150 companies backed, and the organizer of women’s entrepreneurship festivals that changed the city’s startup landscape. Her through-line has always been culture, community, and an unshakable instinct for what’s next. Cannabis, she says, was the natural next chapter.

From Angel Investor to Cannabis Entrepreneur

Wilson’s résumé speaks for itself. After investing early in media companies like Eater and Curbed, she became known as the Gotham Gal, a sharp-eyed backer of women, Black, and brown founders. “My mission was to really only invest in women and Black and brown founders,” she explained. “Not that I don’t have a few white men in there, but that was my focus.”

But after 150 investments, multiple boards, and a major conference series, burnout set in. She began thinking about what came next. A call from a friend changed everything.

“They asked me, do you know what’s going on in New York?” Wilson recalled. “At that point, I was thinking, yeah, maybe I’ll open a store. My original career was in retail. I love the immediate understanding of how your business is on a day-to-day basis. I love the interaction with people that work in the stores, the people that come into the stores. I think retail is just great, even though it’s a difficult business.”

So she jumped in, headfirst. “Anything in my career, I’ve never really flushed it out. I just sort of dive in first and then figure out how to get to the top,” she said. “And nothing could be more new than the cannabis industry.”

Redefining the Cannabis Store

For Wilson, Gotham was never going to look like the typical dispensary. She’d traveled across California, visiting shops, unimpressed by the sameness. “Do they have to look like this?” she asked herself. “Why can’t they be for creatures of culture?”

Instead, she looked to global design icons, Colette in Paris, Dover Street Market, and 10 Corso Como in Milan. “All of those stores, you go in and you have an experience,” she said. “One person might be trying on shirts, another buying a piece of art, another spraying cologne, another grabbing a gift for dinner. Why can’t cannabis be like that?”

At Gotham, it is. The store features a curated gallery supporting emerging artists, events like slam poetry nights and collaborative art projects, and a private label line that reflects the brand’s curated aesthetic. Customers may leave with a pre-roll, a candle, or a fashion accessory. Some don’t buy cannabis at all. “We sell a lot of fragrance and candles,” Wilson said. “We have some customers that come in and they don’t even buy cannabis, they just buy merchandise. It’s such a different retail environment.”

Culture, Community, and Frustration

If Gotham is a beacon of culture, it also exists inside one of the most chaotic regulatory landscapes in the country. Wilson doesn’t mince words about her frustration with New York State’s rollout.

“The biggest frustration is the absolute government incompetence,” she said. “They wanted to put a social slant on it, but the way they did it is the exact opposite. What they have done is create systemic racism all over again. I find it really reprehensible.”

For Wilson, the solution is simple: real jobs, with real benefits. “The only way to change people’s trajectory is to give them a good job with good pay, insurance they don’t have to pay into, an IRA, and the opportunity for upward mobility. It’s pretty simple stuff.”

She’s also outspoken about enforcement against illicit operators. “If New York really got rid of every single illegal store, including underground delivery businesses, how much tax revenue would come back to the state?” she asked. “Not only would it change the trajectory of dispensaries and farms, it could fill the hole in the $4 billion gap in New York City’s budget.”

A Lifelong Relationship with Cannabis

Wilson’s personal history with cannabis stretches back decades. “I basically started getting stoned in eighth grade,” she said, laughing. “I remember being at a party and thinking, Why is this illegal? It made no sense. Even then, I knew it was going to change.”

She kept smoking daily through high school, “probably self-medicating,” she admits, and remained a regular consumer until raising her kids made access less convenient. Today, she still prefers a joint, though she enjoys gummies too. “I think everybody should get stoned,” she said. “It changes your attitude, gives you an adjustment in terms of taking it down a notch. And so, yeah, I love getting stoned.”

Building Gotham’s Team and Inventory

Launching Gotham meant hiring under pressure. “After a year of talking to multiple people for certain jobs and never pulling the trigger because I didn’t have the license, suddenly someone says, You’re going to get your license in four weeks. And I thought, holy sh*t, I have to hire people now,” Wilson recalled.

Her longtime collaborator, Alexandra O’Daly, with her for 15 years, became Gotham’s number two. Together, they’ve built a strong executive team and a diverse staff. “It’s a great community and a really great executive team,” Wilson said.

Inventory is just as carefully curated. “From the cannabis perspective, Mary is our buyer and she keeps a very tight ship,” she explained. “One thing that is really important to the Gotham community is diversity. We’re always looking for BIPOC brands, women-led brands, and different types of brands in line with our aesthetic.”

The Gotham Consumer

So who shops in Gotham? “Any person in New York who wants to have their finger on the pulse of culture,” Wilson said. That might mean a 21-year-old FIT student or a 45-year-old music executive. “Everybody should have that high-end hospitality experience when they come into a store,” she added.

And while she predicted pre-rolls would dominate, the numbers have evened out across flower, joints, and vapes. “There’s nothing that’s so tilted out of the box,” she said. “What’s interesting is people are always looking to try something new. Some customers return several times a week.”

Fashion, Art, and the Next Wave

Wilson has long been plugged into the fashion world, and Gotham reflects that. The store carries designers like KHAITE and Grace Ling, alongside Japanese streetwear staples such as Porter. At one runway show, she recalled, “their models were smoking on the runway. We just got written up in Women’s Wear Daily, and when we showed up backstage, all the models were screaming, ‘Oh my god, Gotham is here.’”

It’s all part of what she sees as Gotham’s mission: to be a hub where cannabis intersects with art, design, and community. “We try to create a real community internally as well as externally,” she said.

Hard Truths and Advice for Entrepreneurs

Despite Gotham’s success, Wilson doesn’t romanticize the business. “This is the hardest business I have ever seen in my life,” she admitted. “Don’t open a dispensary and take anyone’s money. It’s so difficult to operate, with so many layers.”

Her advice to young entrepreneurs: start small, get experience, and don’t rush. “Work for some of the dispensaries, work for some of the brands, get your feet on the street, and see what it’s all about. Decide which area you want to be in. This industry is just starting, and we’ll see massive change in the next five to ten years.”

A Gotham Future

Wilson still imagines an ideal world where cannabis retail in New York looks more like Paris: “You could have a cup of coffee, come back at night for a martini, smoke a joint, and listen to a book reading. All these cultural touch points are so important, particularly in this city.”

Whether or not the laws catch up, Gotham is already proving that cannabis retail can be more than transactional. It can be cultural. It can be stylish. It can be a community.

Or as Wilson put it, “Retail will never go out, ever. People want engagement; they want places that make them feel good. And that’s what Gotham is about.”

Photo courtesy of Joanne Wilson

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Banking institutions are in a race to allow cannabis businesses ahead of imminent changes in the way cannabis is classified at the federal level, according to federal data. Cannabis remains prohibited at the federal level, but the U.S. Health & Human Services Department (HHS) recommendation to reclassify cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III changes everything.

NORML reports that there’s a spike in the number of banking institutions that are filing to work with cannabis businesses as the fear of repercussions subsides. 

According to quarterly data provided by The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN),  a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, over 800 banks and credit unions have filed paperwork with the U.S. government acknowledging their relationships with licensed cannabis businesses.

FinCEN reports that 812 banks and credit unions reported that they are actively working with cannabis companies during the second quarter of the FY2023. That’s a record high since FinCEN first started tracking these numbers. It represents a significant rise from last year’s numbers, when they identified 553 banks—only 11 percent of all U.S. banks—and 202 credit unions.

FinCEN “issued guidance to clarify Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) expectations for financial institutions seeking to provide services to marijuana-related businesses (MRBs),” the report, which is available for download, reads. “This FinCEN guidance clarified how financial institutions can provide services to marijuana-related businesses consistent with their BSA obligations, and aligns the information provided by financial institutions in BSA reports with federal and state law enforcement priorities.”

FinCEN Types of Cannabis Businesses

“FinCEN’s 2014 Guidance specifies three phrases for describing a financial institution’s relationship to Marijuana-Related Businesses (MRBs) in SARs: 

• Marijuana Limited:  means the financial institution provides financial services to an MRB that the financial institution reasonably believes, based on its customer due diligence, does not implicate one of the Cole Memo priorities or violate state law.  
• Marijuana Priority:  means the financial institution provides financial services to an MRB that the financial institution reasonably believes, based on its customer due diligence, implicates one of the Cole Memo priorities or violates state law. 
• Marijuana Termination: means the financial institution deems it necessary to terminate a relationship with an MRB in order to maintain an effective anti-money laundering compliance program.”

NORML leaders discussed the topic with The Hill last May.  

“No industry can operate safely, transparently or effectively without access to banks or other financial institutions and it is self-evident that the players in this industry (smaller and minority-owned businesses in particular), and those consumers that are served by it, will remain severely hampered without better access to credit and financing,” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano told The Hill.

According to survey data compiled last year by Whitney Economics, over 70% of cannabis businesses that were asked said that the “lack of access to banking or investment capital” is their top challenge. 

FinCEN’s Marijuana Banking Update from March 2022 shows a steady increase in the number of banks and credit unions filing to cater to cannabis businesses. “As of 30 September 2021, FinCEN had received a total of 219,097 SARs using the key phrases associated with MRBs. Several of the SARs contain more than one key phrase, which accounts for the numbers for each key phrase being greater than the total,” the report reads.

“FinCEN received 172,501 SARs from filers using the key phrase ‘Marijuana Limited.’ FinCEN received 15,359 SARS from filers using the key phrase, Marijuana Priority. FinCEN received 42,791 SARs from filers using the key phrase ‘Marijuana Termination’.”

FinCEN began providing guidance to cannabis businesses in 2014 with the goal to to help banking institutions operate while cannabis remains illegal at the federal level.

Why Banks Are Changing Their Tune

Yahoo! News reported earlier this month that HHSrecommendation to reclassify cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule III drug could transform the cannabis industry and create new opportunities for banking institutions.

“Rescheduling cannabis to Schedule III may allow dispensaries to accept credit card payments,” Richard Laiderman, former head of global treasury for VISA and Co-Founder and chair of StandardC, said. Credit card payments may supplant cash transactions if this occurs, reducing the risks and costs associated with cash-only operations.”

Cannabis banking expert Robert Baron said, “While changes will inevitably occur, financial institutions looking to serve this market segment must implement risk management tools to evaluate and monitor cannabis businesses. This is where StandardC’s business underwriting & monitoring tools are perfectly suited to meet their Bank Secrecy Act and customer due diligence obligations.”

The HHS recommendation to reclassify cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III would be a pivotal step—the first of its kind at the federal level—to make the cannabis industry safer for everyone.

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Illinois is set for a booming 2022 in cannabis. Learn how to grow your ancillary or plant touching weed business in Illinois.

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There’s no evidence that cannabis companies negatively impact their communities. So why are they paying massive impact fees?

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Are you ready to invest in cannabis? Find out where to start investing in weed in our beginner’s guide to investment from Good Tree Capital.

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The ten participants of Eaze’s 2021 Momentum incubator pitched their business ideas to major investors.

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What types of cannabis businesses are out there? Learn about weed business models from the experts on cannabis funding.

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Find out the costs of opening a weed business with this informative article from Good Tree Capital.

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Thinking about starting a cannabis business but don’t know where to begin? Good Tree Capital helps us learn how to open a legal weed business

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Women and minorities have similar problems in the cannabis space that need to be examined with a watchful eye.

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