A new recreational cannabis dispensary, Cooperstown Homegrown, plans to open its doors in Index sometime in July.
The business will be the third licensed dispensary in Otsego County after Dosha in Oneonta and Greens Greenery in Unadilla, according to the state Office of Cannabis Management registry.
Owners Sam Spohn and Vince Casale envisioned the business as a boutique style store offering what Casale called “modern apothecary more than neon lights” in a Friday, June 26 phone call. “I equate it to the craft breweries that have sprung up” around the region and state, he said.
In addition to cannabis products from other businesses, they plan to start selling marijuana grown on site in the fall. The building included a garage area for growing and storing the marijuana.
“When we say ‘Cooperstown Homegrown,’ we’re talking homegrown,” Spohn said on a Friday tour of the mid-renovation business at the intersection of state Route 28 and County Highway 11.
“It’s a very small store, 10 by 15 feet,” he said of the retail room. “We’re going to offer 10 strains at first, hand selected.”
Casale and Spohn hoped the central location would attract both summer tourists, many of whom coming from states where recreational cannabis is not legal, and local residents who have not had an option close to home.
Spohn, of Ilion, said the business owns a property in Mohawk that will be used for growing the crop as well.
The dispensary’s grower, he said he had been “heavily involved in cannabis” when he got out of high school in about 1999 and 2000, “when all the Canadian weed was coming over the border.” He said he and friends “made a lot of money” selling the product, which is how he got into growing marijuana.
Spohn said his life changed and marijuana consumption stopped when he became a father to a set of twins, each of whom was autistic and nonverbal. More than a decade later, he was in a collision while driving a truck for his father’s waste management company, he said, and resumed marijuana use for medicinal purposes on a doctor’s advice.
State law requires dispensaries to have a community impact plan. Spohn said his experience raising his children motivated Cooperstown Homegrown to fulfill this requirement by donating a portion of its profits to nearby Springbrook, an organization which supports people with developmental disabilities.
The partnership between Spohn and Casale came about after Spohn’s initial plans for a dispensary in Herkimer fell through in about 2024, each said, and Spohn’s lobbyist for that project, Joe Rossi, connected them.
Spohn met Casale for lunch and “the rest is history,” said Casale, whose main work is as a Republican political consultant for candidates upstate. Casale, of Cooperstown, previously served as chairperson of the Otsego County Republican Committee.
Spohn said some residents and members of the Herkimer zoning board were opposed to the venture, and he was searching for a more welcoming community.
“I think the people around here are intellectual about cannabis, you know? They don’t read too much into the stigmas,” Spohn said of response to the new location, which has already drawn some visitors inquiring about the business.
Casale said he actually had been looking into starting a liquor store, but realized cannabis was an opportunity to be on “the front end of an emerging market.”
“New York has done this well,” said Casale, who has handled more of the retail and marketing end of the business, of the state’s cannabis approach. He said the Office of Cannabis Management had been responsive and helpful in the process of starting the dispensary.
“Instead of a hundred ways of saying no, they want to help get you on the market,” he said.
Spohn said about $250,000 had been invested into starting the dispensary.
State law requires that a 4% local tax be applied to cannabis product sales. Of that, 3% goes to the town or village where the business is located and 1% goes to the county. Spohn said that in his discussions with Hartwick town officials, the closure of the Grand Union supermarket and its impact on the town’s tax base was discussed.
“I met (Sam) and he seems like a stand up guy,” Hartwick Town Supervisor Cody Moore said Thursday via text message. “I’m excited to have another business in our town.”