A brand-new queer and Latino-owned cannabis dispensary in Williamsburg is hoping to be a welcoming, safe space for the neighborhood’s LGBTQ and immigrant communities.
Flower Daddy, located at 539 Metropolitan Ave., officially opened on Jan. 29. Owned by Pablo Velez, the store celebrates the cannabis plant as a whole as well as the community that cannabis brings together.
“I just want to create like a neighborhood hub. I feel like everyone kind of says that, like yeah, we’re people from the neighborhood, we’re here for that, but I’m Latino, I’m part of the LGBTQ plus community, so yeah, I wanna create a place where people can come in and they feel comfortable,” said Velez.
For Velez, the road to opening Flower Daddy was a bumpy one. Around 15 years ago, Velez, a Colombian immigrant, found himself on the brink of deportation because he was arrested for smoking marijuana in public.
“I was in the Lower East Side. I was outside with my friends outside of the bar and then we were like, ‘Oh, should we smoke a little bit?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, this is kind of like dangerous to go outside.’ And then someone passed me a one-hitter and I did smoke it,” said Velez. “When I smoked that, there was a swarm of police officers undercover and my friends and I got arrested.”
Because of his immigration status, Velez — who has lived in New York City for over 25 years — faced major potential consequences if he had a drug conviction on his green card. He was able to only have to do community service, but this one incident would continue to follow him.
When Velez would travel, he would be held up and questioned. It was one incident at JFK Airport, when Velez was returning from a trip to Mexico, that almost ended so badly for him that he faced deportation. After many more months, Velez was able to be granted US citizenship.
“I was able to become a citizen. It was years and years and years of battling this and trying to figure this out just because of that kind of conviction,” said Velez.
New beginnings in the cannabis industry
When New York began to legalize recreational cannabis, Velez decided to jump on the opportunity to apply for a license. Though he was able to qualify for a license, it was no easy feat for Velez.
“Being able to open has not been easy. Dealing with the OCM and dealing with trying to get this license — it wasn’t given to me. It’s been a fight,” said Velez.
In a sense, opening Flower Daddy is Velez’s way of reclaiming his past with cannabis, even though it has been a struggle.
Flower Daddy held its official grand opening on Jan. 29, but with the snowstorm, Velez wasn’t sure that the grand opening would even happen. He told amNewYork that just days before the opening, the store lost power as a result of the snowstorm that blew in around that time.
The power company told Velez that the power was expected to come back at 10 p.m. the night before the opening, but by 9 p.m., he decided to monitor the situation on the cameras from home. Velez said he considered moving the grand opening to another day, but ultimately waited to see if the power would come back, losing a night of sleep in the process.
“I did not sleep that night. I stayed up all night just checking and waiting. At 7 a.m., the lights came back on, and I was like, ‘Okay, the show must continue,’ so we continued with the opening,” said Velez.
The opening ended up being a huge success, with Velez saying that the store hit some record high sales despite the weather.
“It was kind of surreal. I just couldn’t believe that I was here and everything was happening and we were able to open,” said Velez.
As Flower Daddy continues to grow, Velez wants to create community programming centered around immigration and the LGBTQ+ community, focusing on harm reduction and navigating the legal system.
“I’ve been through everything. I’ve been through trying to look for lawyers when I was going through deportation proceedings, trying to find people who could help me for free because I didn’t have the money to pay for a lawyer,” said Velez. “I want to be able to create a little bit of those connections and be able to create a resource for people who need help.”
For more information, visit flowerdaddy.nyc.
