Community Is the New Moat

In cannabis today, the license no longer separates winners from losers. Relationships and data do. I heard that message in two very different rooms, just days apart.

The first was The Highrise, presented by Gotham and Cultivated at The Greene Space in New York on October 22. It was organized like a salon, in the historic sense of the word, with conversation at the center. The second was Blank Rome’s 10th Annual State of the Cannabis Industry Conference in Boston, which brought together regulators, lenders, operators, and restructuring advisors. Different audiences, same through line: community engagement, and the data to back it up.

Retail: Winning the Second, Third and Fourth Visit

The Highrise opened with three of New York’s top retailers: Joanne Wilson of Gotham, Vladimir Bautista of The Happy Munkey, and Christina de Giovanni of The Emerald. Some of the best points were about how to bring a first-time buyer back for a second, third and fourth purchase. That gets harder with the legacy market a few blocks away. It is harder still in parts of New York City, where tourist traffic outweighs recurring local shoppers.

Every panelist named product mix and inventory depth as a core challenge. Getting it wrong is costly: poor buying decisions strain cash flow, and a retailer that falls behind on payables can end up on a supplier’s cash-only list. Boston had a regulatory parallel. Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission Chair Christopher Harding noted the state keeps its own “naughty list” of late payers.

Asked what changes they would like to see in the industry, the retailers’ list was broad:

  • Relief from advertising restrictions
  • Lower taxes and rent
  • Movement on federal rescheduling
  • The ability to accept credit cards, which one panelist estimated could grow a business by 25%

The two strongest asks were blunter: stop issuing licenses, and make hemp illegal.

Both were echoed in Boston. Curaleaf’s Boris Jordan said there are too many operators and the industry needs consolidation. Lenders on the capital markets panel called hemp uninvestable. Massachusetts, meanwhile, is seeing some contraction on its own: Harding said 124 licenses were recently surrendered.

Outreach Is the Strategy, for Retailers and Regulators Alike

All three retailers stressed outreach. Bautista described visiting senior citizen centers and other constituencies that legal cannabis rarely reaches. The panel also talked about hosting events and becoming a “third place” for customers and patients: somewhere between home and work where people choose to spend time.

The regulators struck the same note. In The Highrise session on the biggest markets in America, moderated by Cultivated’s Jeremy Berke, New York Office of Cannabis Management Executive Director John Kagia described his team’s listening sessions. Some attendees were shocked to hear that legal cannabis is coming and that the government wants them to be part of it. He was joined by Clint Kellum, Director of California’s Department of Cannabis Control. Between them, California and New York oversee more than 10,000 licenses with almost 900 staff, and both face the same stubborn challenge of shrinking the illicit market.

In Boston, Harding described a similar reset in Massachusetts: customer-service training for CCC staff, and a more measured inspection posture. His message to inspectors was don’t send six staff and don’t flash badges. Three state regulators, two events, one theme: build the relationship before enforcing the rule.

Price Compression Makes Data, and the Channel, Non-Negotiable

The Highrise panel on price compression, moderated by Smrita Choubey of Nabis, underscored the importance of data, and Boston reinforced it:

  • Rick Bashkoff of Lit Alerts said many of his customers now use AI and MCP connections to build their own dashboards and SOPs on top of Lit Alerts data, embedding it directly in their workflows.
  • Christine Roberts of Needham Bank described a bank using AI on suspicious activity reports, cutting a 30-day process to two days.
  • Lenders in Boston said they underwrite cash flow, free cash flow conversion, and hard assets. A license is a requirement, not collateral.
  • Even regulators are building the tools: Harding’s team has BI dashboards that expose medical access deserts in western Massachusetts.

Growers on the Highrise panel, including Rustin Kluge of Ruby Farms, added that they need to know who their customer is: the end buyer and the store. It is the old adage of selling the channel, and another form of the community engagement that ran through the event.

Bashkoff summed it up best: a license is not a license to succeed. It is a license to open.

The Bottom Line

Cresco’s Charlie Bachtell recalled in Boston that regulatory complexity once acted as a moat. That moat is draining. With prices compressed, more licenses in the market, and capital still scarce, the edge now belongs to operators who know their customers, their store buyers, their regulators, and their communities, and who have the data to prove it. Retailers, growers, regulators, and lenders all said a version of the same thing: community is the new moat, and data is how you deepen it, especially when that data becomes part of how a business runs every day.