SCHENECTADY — The year was 2023, March to be precise, when Schenectady welcomed its first legal cannabis dispensary. Upstate Canna Co., located on upper Union Street, was met with a wave of enthusiasm, with queues snaking down the block for weeks following its grand opening.
However, the initial euphoria soon gave way to discontent among local business owners and residents. They voiced their concerns to the City Council about the throngs of people waiting to enter the city’s sole legal cannabis outlet.
Fast forward two years, and six cannabis shops had sprung up in the city. In response to the rapid growth, the City Council implemented zoning restrictions in February 2025. These regulations prohibited cannabis shops from residential areas and confined them to manufacturing and warehousing districts, the C-4 downtown mixed-use district, the C-5 business district, and the C-3 waterfront mixed-use district, with special permits required.
The council also imposed a rule preventing new cannabis shops from opening within 500 feet of schools and 200 feet of religious properties.
This zoning mirrored restrictions introduced by the council in June 2024, which aimed to limit smoke and vape shops to business and manufacturing districts.
Currently, Schenectady is home to nine cannabis dispensaries, including prime locations on State Street, Broadway, and at Mohawk Harbor.
In 2024, the People’s Joint cannabis dispensary opened its doors at 501 State St., a high-profile downtown location near Proctors. The shop is located in the C-4 district, a zone permitted for cannabis shops under the 2025 zoning.
City Council member Doreen Ditoro, who advocated for the smoke-shop zoning in 2024, expressed her belief that the vape-shop and cannabis-dispensary zoning has been effective. However, she wished the council had acted sooner to regulate the location of cannabis shops.
“The council was proactive, but the process didn’t move as swiftly as we would have preferred,” Ditoro commented.
When the smoke shop zoning was enacted in 2024, the city had 39 registered smoke shops, in addition to stores operating illegally without city approval.
Ditoro noted a decrease in the number of registered vape shops over the past two years. The city’s Code Enforcement Department did not have a current list of smoke shops in Schenectady, with Mayor Gary McCarthy stating that the department is still working to bring illegally opened smoke shops into compliance with the 2024 zoning regulations.
“The overall compliance rate and product quality have significantly improved over the last few years,” McCarthy said, referring to vape shops in the city.
The vape shop zoning approved by the council stipulated that a store in the city is classified as a vape shop if 40% or more of its floor area is dedicated to selling cigarettes, vape pens, and other smoking paraphernalia.
“There are some [shops] in the city that still really need to be addressed, but overall I think it’s been a positive move,” Ditoro added.
In December 2021, facing a year-end deadline to decide on the state’s new law allowing the sale of cannabis products, the council voted in favor of cannabis sales, with former council members Marion Porterfield and John Polimeni opposing the sale of recreational cannabis.
The city is projecting $850,000 in revenue in 2026 from its cannabis excise tax, a significant increase from the $683,225 collected in 2024.
The once long lines outside Upstate Canna on upper Union Street have since disappeared, thanks to the increased competition in the city, with eight more dispensaries opening in the past three years.
Ditoro suggested that the zoning implemented by the city last year, combined with market forces, could potentially weed out some of the dispensaries in the city.
“There were always lines [outside Upstate Canna] and now it’s just overkill,” she said, referring to the city’s nine dispensaries.
Agree – This is a necessary step to protect our community and prevent an over-saturation of these establishments.
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