(Credit: Courtesy Ouid website, 2023)
Ouid logo.
Add a second entrepreneur to the list of people eyeing Glens Falls for cannabis sales. Ross Dubarry, the former manager of the Warren County airport and his wife Nancy, have formed the company Ouid and are scoping locations including one building on Glen Street, Dubarry told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com.
The name is prounounced like the French "Oui" with a "D": Weed.
They join Joe Kelley who told the Glens Falls Common Council on Tuesday that he too was scoping locations for a retail dispensary.
Both Dubarry and Kelley have spoken with city officials, which is one step in the process of opening a location in the city. Dubarry had approached the city last fall.
Kelley has the distinct advantage in this pursuit.
He already has a license to sell marijuana. Dubarry and his wife do not.
They did not qualify as either justice-affected or social-equity applicants. The state is issuing licenses first to people who have nonviolent marijuana-related convictions or who come from a “community disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of cannabis prohibition.” Kelley has been convicted of marijuana possession.
Geography becomes a factor.
Cannabis businesses with the same type of license as one another and set in municipalities with populations under 20,000 must be separated by at least 2,000 feet, state law says. As well, all cannabis companies must be at least 500 feet from schools and 200 feet from houses of worship.
Glens Falls has a population of about 15,000 people in 3.85 square miles.
This means just one dispensary will fit inside the city, Glens Falls officials have said. Dubarry said that was his understanding too. He expects that he and his wife will get the same license type as Kelley already has.
If Kelley finds a location for a dispensary, "We're out," Dubarry said.
And the license remains the issue.
The Dubarrys are working to earn a certification as a woman-owned business, which should put them in the running for the next round of applications. The state has not yet set the date for those applications.
"We have to wait for the next opportunity," to apply, Ross Dubarry said. "Until we can apply, it's just plans.”
They have a lawyer, architect and designer working with them, and they have a Michelin star, west-coast chef with whom they plan to work. The agreements are verbal at this point, Dubarry said. Without a license, they will not sign a lease or buy a location.
The plan is a high-end cafe with wood interiors, comfy seating and “high-end finishes.”
"We'd do mocktails, but instead of alcohol we'll serve cannabis," he said.
He wants to attract diners, as well.
"There will be a heavy focus on the food," Dubarry said. Along with marijuana products they will serve marijuana-infused foods if allowed under state law. The chef, whom Dubarry did not name, has experience cooking with marijuana, he said.
They are planning a retail dispensary along with the cafe, but consuming on-site and selling retail purchases for at-home use cannot exist in the same space under state regulation, so Dubarry said they are planning to have a connected space, with a dispensary on one side and the cafe through a door to a separate space.
He said that some of the regulations are still not set, and he expects his plans to change accordingly.
He said that he had not been considering Queensbury for this idea since Queensbury does not have the sort of downtown area with a concentration of restaurants and bars that he is looking for and Lake George Village opted out of pot sales and on-site use, so that is not an option.
"It's points south here for us," he said.
For that reason, he has been looking at Saratoga Springs, but he and Kelley both cited the cost per square foot of doing retail business in SpaCity as a possibly cost-prohibitive factor.