Greater Riverdale's first state-licensed dispensary, Frass Box, opened in June
Greater Riverdale is getting its first state-licensed dispensary in June.
The Office of Cannabis Management and Community Board 8 approved Frass Box, located at 3633 Kingsbridge Ave., back in March.
The process was not an easy one, according to Frass Box owner, Daphne Borowski.
“It was painstakingly difficult, and you have to be very patient,” she told The Press. “It’s taken two years to open. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to get to this point in the application process and to get accepted and to qualify and to find the funding to do it.”
The not-yet-opened dispensary sits inside a currently unoccupied residential building with about four other storefronts, only a few hundred feet away from the 50th Precinct and about 800 feet from Manhattan College’s engineering building.
Owners Borowski and her business partner, Rodge Archer, initially tried to get a location up the hill but found few properties to rent, as state dispensary facilities cannot be located within 200 feet of a house of worship or 500 feet of a school entrance.
Given those parameters, they ultimately wound up in Kingsbridge.
“We thought it’d be better to get back to the community in the Bronx,” Borowski said. “And we really liked this location in particular because it really identifies the Bronx native person. It’s very mixed; it’s the melting pot of New York.”
The dispensary will offer flower, vaporizers, body rub ailments for pain, gummies and THC infused drinks, like a hard seltzer marijuana drink Borowski said is “perfect for the summer.”
The dispensary will also display flower that customers can smell for themselves and take a look.
Archer, a Jamaican Bronx native, explained how the title “Frass Box” came to be.
“It’s basically the same thing as slumped over, get wasted,” Archer said. “In Jamaica, we say frassed, we don’t really say high.”
The news of a state-licensed dispensary has several locals ecstatic and others apprehensive.
Jewely Colon, a Bronx native who lives in Queens but was visiting her mother in Kingsbridge, shared her excitement while holding a joint.
“I can’t wait, I’m going to be their first customer, of course,” she said. The “first one in line to come.”
Colon said smoking helps relax her, connect her to nature and even helps her grandmother, who has dementia. Colon’s mother, Evelin, said she was glad there was a legal dispensary closer now.
“I don’t smoke, I don’t have (anything) against anybody smoking,” she said. “I never thought that it would be legal but, you know, it’s good that it is.”
The opinion of local business owners and employees in the area ranged from opened minded, to indifferent, to opposition.
Jose Elias, a local business owner, said he didn’t feel the shop was in the right neighborhood with the college around the corner.
“Get rid of it,” Elias said. “I actually told my girlfriend this morning, I was like ‘Really, why?’ I’d rather have a store or something else. Like why is this here? They have (illegal storefronts) all over the place.”
Dilson Reyes, owner of a barber on the block, invited the new dispensary with open arms, saying he believed it would invite more business.
Juan Rodriguez, an employee at Convenience and Beer, acknowledged it was a family area, but also said it was a business area.
Owner of the Home Bx Steakhouse, Yair Benzaken, was supportive of efforts to legalize marijuana, but said he believed the business would have difficulty.
“I guarantee they’re going to close because there are so many illegal places around,” he said.
Borowski said there would definitely be competition with those “illegal places.”
However, she had some hope given initiatives announced by Gov. Kathy Hochul in April to shut down suspected illegal cannabis shops. The Office of Cannabis Management would be authorized to padlock a business if it posed an imminent threat to health and safety, sold to minors, or had products not tested or labeled according to law.
During Community Board 8’s last public safety committee meeting, 50th Precinct community affairs officer Rasha Jamsheer said police recently shut down several illegal shops, including the Pot Shop, Game Over, The Cannabis and The Flower.
Public safety committee chair Ed Green highlighted Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who she said has found a blueprint to shutting the shops down.
As The New York Times reported last April, Brewer sent the department of consumer and worker protection, which regulates tobacco, to a dispensary without a license to sell tobacco and then drowned it in fines, ultimately shutting it down.
“There’s going to be a certain stigma attached to this type of business, but the bottom line is it’s legal now,” Green said. “We’re concerned with businesses operating illegal stuff.”
Despite the state cannabis control board issuing 403 adult-use cannabis licenses in 2024, there are currently only 130 adult-use cannabis dispensaries according to New York State.
Borowski said she is hoping to open Frass Box on June 15.
With reporting by Anya Markovitz
Keywords
Greater Riverdale dispensary, Frass Box, state-licensed cannabis, Kingsbridge Ave, Bronx cannabis store, cannabis products NYC
