New York's Cannabis Microbusinesses Can Now Sell at Farmers Markets. Fewer Than 1 in 10 Ever Opened a Store

Rose Fera already knows how to sell at a farmers market. She and her husband Dan own Leaning Birch Farm and are majority partners in Goldfinch Flora, a licensed cannabis microbusiness their son Nic co-owns and operates, and she sits on the board of the Schenectady Greenmarket, where the family sells its vegetables. What she has never been allowed to do is set up a second table for the crop the state licenses her family to grow, process and sell. "It allows us as a small farm to be able to do like we do with our vegetables and sell directly to our customers," Fera told Spectrum News after that changed this month. (S1)

It changed on August 6, when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed S.10113/A.11217, now Chapter 207, effective immediately. The law lets New York's licensed cannabis microbusinesses, the all-in-one tier that can cultivate, process and retail its own product, hold their own Cannabis Showcase Event permits and sell directly to consumers at approved farmers markets, public markets and pop-up events. Until now, a microbusiness could sell only from its fixed storefront, and could join a showcase event only by partnering with a separately licensed retailer. "This new law gives licensed microbusinesses and dispensaries a real chance to succeed in New York's legal cannabis market," Hochul said in her signing statement. (S2, S3, S4)

For Fera, the point is not just the table. It is who stands behind it. "Talk about our product. Talk about how it's grown. Give them, you know, all the information we can about its effects, things like that, in a way that even the best educated bartenders just can't, because we grew it," she said. (S1)

The stakes for the license class are close to existential. New York created the microbusiness tier as its craft rung, a seed-to-sale permit meant to let small farms hold their whole margin. It has not worked out that way. A survey presented to the state Cannabis Control Board this spring found only 20% of vertically integrated microbusinesses profitable and 64% of respondents operating in the red. Fewer than 10% of microbusiness permit holders have managed to open a storefront at all, Nicole Ricci, president of the small-operator trade group NY Small Farma, told the board in April. In a $1.7 billion market, the tier designed for farmers has mostly been locked out of the room where the money changes hands. (S3, S2)

The tier's struggles sit inside a market that is otherwise scaling fast. In March, on the fifth anniversary of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, the state reported cumulative legal sales of $3.3 billion, with 610 licensed retail dispensaries open and 2,161 adult-use licenses issued across the supply chain, 56% of them to applicants in the state's Social and Economic Equity program. The market's growth is the microbusinesses' problem in miniature: every month it matures, shelf space consolidates around brands with distribution and marketing budgets, and a farm that cannot get a storefront open falls further behind the customers it was licensed to serve. A booth at a Saturday market does not fix that arithmetic, but it is revenue that requires no lease, no buildout loan and no wholesale middleman. (S8, S3)

New York has been circling this idea for three years. In summer 2023, regulators improvised the Cannabis Growers Showcase program, pop-up markets that gave licensed farmers sitting on unsold harvests a direct channel to consumers; the program was discontinued at the start of 2024. In March 2025, Hochul signed legislation creating a permanent Cannabis Showcase Event permit, but it required a licensed retailer to anchor every event, with cultivators and processors as display partners. The new law completes the arc: a microbusiness authorized for retail can now hold the permit itself and sell its own products, though only its own; the state Office of Cannabis Management's guidance is explicit that permitted microbusinesses may not partner with outside cultivators or processors at their events. (S5, S6, S7)

The 2023 original proved the demand. The improvised Growers Showcase pop-ups that summer and fall were, for many licensed growers, their first meaningful sales channel, and the program's abrupt discontinuation at the start of 2024 was one of the small program decisions operators complained about longest, which is why lawmakers rebuilt it as a permanent permit in 2025 and have widened it twice since. Hinchey's bill went from introduction on April 30 to the governor's signature in 98 days, fast by Albany standards, and passed the Senate 47-13. (S5, S4, S2)

This will not look like a raw vegetable stand. Showcase events are permitted per location, capped at 14 consecutive days per permit and 45 event days per site per year. Sales areas must be restricted to adults 21 and over, with age verification at entry; on-site consumption, free samples and giveaways are prohibited; security plans are required, and minimum distances from schools, houses of worship and youth facilities apply. The event needs written municipal approval before OCM will even consider the permit, and if it happens inside a farmers market, the market's own organizers must sign off too. Fera, from her seat on the Greenmarket board, is already thinking through the build-out: "We're going to need to do things with our booths so that probably have, you know, walls at least most of the way up so that you can't see right in and directly see the product, because we're going to have to follow those, those regs." (S7, S8, S1)

That tax wrinkle is the quiet obstacle. A village that hosts a cannabis booth at its Saturday market takes on the local debate and gets none of the local revenue unless the seller's home base is in town. Combined with the municipal sign-off requirement, the law gives every host community a veto and, for most, little fiscal reason to say yes. The first wave of events will likely cluster where microbusinesses already operate and where market boards, like Fera's in Schenectady, are willing to work through booth walls and security plans. (S7, S1)

One restriction cuts against the communal feel of a market: a permitted microbusiness may sell only its own products. Two neighboring farms cannot share a booth or cross-stock each other's flower; each needs its own permit, its own municipal form and its own compliant stall. The seed-to-sale logic runs all the way down to the table. (S7)

The officials who wrote and signed the law are framing it as a fairness correction. Sen. Michelle Hinchey, the Democrat who introduced the bill in her chamber on April 30, put it simply: "Showcase events, like farm markets, give these small businesses a perfect way to reach consumers with their homegrown products." Assemblymember Donna Lupardo carried the companion bill. John Kagia, the Office of Cannabis Management's executive director, called the market "an economic engine for New York" whose strength "lies in the businesses operating across the supply chain," and said the change is part of normalization, "to ensure that cannabis can take its appropriate place within the communities, particularly given the scale of demand that we see across the state." (S4, S1)

Operators concur, with the wariness of people who have been promised access before. "As a microbusiness, it can be difficult to compete with larger operators that have significantly bigger marketing budgets," said Matthew Nicoletti, owner of the microbusiness Quality High. "These events provide a meaningful opportunity to compete on a more level playing field while strengthening relationships within our communities." Ricci, whose group pushed the bill, thanked the state for "strengthening" direct-to-consumer sales so small growers can "fully realize the seed-to-sale model envisioned under the microbusiness license tier," and pointedly added that her group will stay involved in implementation "so that all microbusinesses can have meaningful market access." (S3, S9)

“Talk about our product. Talk about how it's grown... in a way that even the best educated bartenders just can't, because we grew it.”

— Rose Fera, co-owner, Goldfinch Flora and Leaning Birch Farm

Nationally, the experiment is being watched as a template. Bridget Spiddle of the Marijuana Policy Project called it "a sensible and innovative step" that "could potentially serve as a blueprint for other states," noting it connects consumers directly with the people who grow the product. That is not a small distinction: California's craft cultivators have sought direct-to-consumer access for years without success, and no other large market pairs an all-in-one small-business license with an events channel like this one. (S9, S3)

1. Microbusinesses can apply now: municipal approval form, then the OCM Cannabis Showcase Event application; permits are location-specific.
2. The outdoor market calendar is the clock; the law took effect Aug. 6, leaving roughly two months of the 2026 season for first events.
3. Watch whether host municipalities balk over the local-tax allocation, which sends the local share to the permittee's home town.
4. The CCB's next microbusiness survey will show whether event access moves the 64%-in-the-red number.

At the Schenectady Greenmarket, the discussions have started: what a compliant booth looks like, how sight lines and age checks work between the bread stand and the flower farm. Fera has sold there long enough to know that most shoppers come for the conversation as much as the produce. Her family's other crop finally gets one. Whether it gets customers, this season or next, now depends on how many towns and market boards say yes. (S1)

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