Cannabis shop opens in former Albany KeyBank branch
Hold Up Roll Up adds to at least 12 cannabis retailers now in immediate Albany area
Albany’s Lark Street now has a marijuana shop, with owners hoping to appeal to what they call a cannabis-friendly neighborhood.
For those spotting the business at the street’s entrance, it can be hard to tell what Hold Up Roll Up sells with just its sign and tinted windows to comply with state rules. Based in a former KeyBank branch at 196 Washington Ave., with an old square clock perched outside, customers can find cases of rolled joints, gummies and cannabinoid products from suppliers across New York.
There are now at least 12 licensed cannabis retailers in the immediate Capital Region.
In front of a bank safe, staff wear store merchandise like T-shirts and caps bearing a dotted “H.” Kiosks equipped with touch screens mark the center of the spacious room. There, customers can smell samples of marijuana flowers and place them on a pad to learn more about the products.
“We’ve got a couple of comments where people said we are the ‘Apple Store of weed,’ said Jason Coleman, the store’s chief operating officer and co-owner, adding in an interview that the store’s name is borrowed from a common phrase used to pause a conversation to get high before engaging in a deep discussion.
The store is also owned by Charles “Obar” Robinson, who previously sold marijuana illegally with his brothers Mark and Steven and half-brother Eddie on North Swan Street in Arbor Hill for more than a decade beginning in the early 1990s. Charles Robinson, along with Mark, served eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to marijuana trafficking charges. Like others who have opened marijuana shops in recent months, Robinson is a licensee of the state’s conditional retail dispensaries program granting priority to business owners with recorded marijuana offenses.
During an event Thursday celebrating the store’s May 8 opening, Robinson held back tears, calling the ceremony a “glorious moment and a dream come true” in front of about 25 people who cheered him on.
“I just want younger people to look up and say that you can dream because dreams do come true,” said Robinson, who was joined by local and state officials, including Albany council members Jahmel Robinson — Robinson’s nephew — and Gabriella Romero, as well as Tahlil McGough of the Office of Cannabis Management.
Patrick Noonan of the Lark Street BID, which hosts events and promotes local businesses, said the marijuana shop is a suitable addition to the more than 80 businesses in the neighborhood.
“It’s an incredibly unique entity that’s going to bring a whole different set of folks down here that might not have otherwise come down to check out Lark Street,” Noonan said.
For Robinson, Lark Street is home to residents who typically view marijuana favorably.
“I look at Lark Street in the city of Albany as being an area where you have a high number of nonjudgmental people,” he said.
