How Brooklyn Became a Hub for Black Cannabis

If you want to understand where Black cannabis entrepreneurship in New York is going, you have to start with Brooklyn. Not because it's a symbol or a slogan — but because it's a fact. Brooklyn has always been the borough where outsiders become founders, where culture gets made before the mainstream catches on, and where communities that were told to wait their turn have consistently built something from nothing. The legal cannabis industry in New York is the latest chapter in that story, and we — Silly Nice — are proud to be writing it alongside some of the most fearless entrepreneurs this city has ever produced.

We launched Silly Nice in March 2024. Black-owned, Veteran-owned, LGBTQ+-owned, and family-run, right here in New York City. In less than a year, our products reached 150+ licensed adult-use dispensaries across the state of New York. That didn't happen by accident. It happened because we understood this community before we ever filed a single form with the state. Brooklyn taught us that.

The Culture Was Always Here. The Legal Access Wasn't.

For decades, Black New Yorkers bore the overwhelming weight of cannabis prohibition. The NYPD's stop-and-frisk era hit neighborhoods like Brownsville, East Flatbush, Bed-Stuy, and Crown Heights hardest. People were arrested, records were built, futures were complicated — all while cannabis quietly flowed through every borough. The criminalization wasn't about public safety. It was about control. And when New York finally legalized adult-use cannabis through the MRTA in 2021, the conversation shifted: who gets to build the industry that grows from the ashes of that prohibition? For us, the answer was always clear — the people who bore the burden must be first in line to build the future.

New York's Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act was written with social equity at its center — a deliberate, stated commitment that communities most harmed by the War on Drugs would have priority access to cannabis business licenses. On paper, that was a revolutionary promise. In reality, the rollout was slow, complicated, and riddled with obstacles that disproportionately affected applicants with fewer resources and less access to attorneys and lobbyists. That's the honest truth, and we say it not to complain but because our community deserves transparency.

Still, the MRTA cracked a door that had never been open before. And Black entrepreneurs in Brooklyn — and across the five boroughs — pushed through it. The Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) program, designed specifically for justice-involved applicants, opened pathways that simply didn't exist anywhere else in the country. Imperfect? Yes. Historic? Absolutely. We have watched fellow founders navigate that system with a level of determination that deserves every headline it gets.

Why Brooklyn Specifically Became the Epicenter

Brooklyn's concentration of Black-owned small businesses, community organizations, and cultural institutions gave it an infrastructure that other boroughs couldn't replicate as quickly. From the cannabis retailers anchoring Atlantic Avenue corridors to the social clubs in Flatbush where people were having real conversations about terpenes and extraction methods long before anyone called it an industry — Brooklyn had the ecosystem. It had people who knew the plant, loved the plant, and were ready to professionalize that knowledge the moment the law allowed it.

Black ownership in cannabis is not a marketing category. It is a lived reality that shapes every decision we make — from who we hire, to how we price our products, to what labs we use, to how we talk to our community. When we say Silly Nice is Black-owned, we mean that the values, the aesthetics, the relationships, and the standards of this brand come from two Black founders — Shane Breen, a U.S. Army Veteran, and LeVar Thomas — who have been partners for over 25 years and who built this brand with their own hands and their own vision.

That shapes our product philosophy in ways that go deeper than branding. We make small-batch, independently lab-tested products because our community has been sold inferior goods for too long and deserves to know exactly what they're consuming. Every single product on our menu has a Certificate of Analysis — a real lab result, verifiable at sillynice.com/menu. Not estimates. Not approximations. Actual numbers. Our Diamond Powder is 86.24% THC and 98.54% total cannabinoids. Our Frosted Hash Ball is 67.34% THC with 5.7% terpenes. Our Bubble Hash carries 6.2% terpene content — one of the highest in the market — at $44 a gram. That level of transparency is intentional. Our community deserves it.

Generational Wealth Starts With the Shelf

When Black-owned cannabis brands succeed, the money stays in the community. It funds future ventures, it employs community members, it keeps wealth cycling through the neighborhoods that built the culture in the first place. Every dollar spent on a Silly Nice product is a vote for that cycle continuing. We don't say that lightly — we say it because it's the truest thing about why this work matters beyond the product itself. We are building something intended to last, and we are doing it in full view of the community that raised the standards we work to meet every single day.

We built Silly Nice on the belief that quality is the most powerful argument any brand can make. So let us make it plainly. Our 510 Vape in Pink Stardust is 81.96% THC and 88.36% total cannabinoids, crafted with 100% cannabis-derived terpenes — no cutting agents, no synthetics, no shortcuts. Our 2G All-in-One in Alaskan Thunder Fuck runs 82.46% THC and 84.06% total cannabinoids on a rechargeable USB-C device, priced at $80 for two full grams. For adults 21 and older who want to know exactly what they're consuming and why, our menu answers every question in real numbers.

Our Infused Flower — Papaya Wine — is 3.5 grams at 51.22% THC and 58.63% total cannabinoids, infused with live resin and THCa diamonds, priced at $60. It is a product that didn't exist in the legal New York market the way we've made it — and we say that with full confidence because we watch what's on the shelves. We also know that New Yorkers who have spent years sourcing premium flower have taste and knowledge that demands real competition. We built Silly Nice to meet that bar and then raise it.

Small-Batch and Sustainably Packaged — On Purpose

We make everything in small batches because quality isn't scalable at the expense of the product. Sustainable packaging is part of our commitment to a borough and a city that we actually live and operate in — we're not shipping product from across the country and pretending to be local. We are local. And local means being accountable to the environment and the people who share our zip codes. Every packaging choice, every production decision runs through that accountability.

Shane Breen served in the United States Army before co-founding Silly Nice with LeVar Thomas — and that military background is woven into how we operate. Discipline. Standards. Accountability. The Veteran-owned designation isn't a marketing footnote; it shapes the culture of this company from the inside out. Veterans and Black entrepreneurs face overlapping and distinct barriers in any industry, and cannabis is no different. The capital requirements, the regulatory complexity, the licensing timelines — all of these systems were not designed with us in mind. We navigated them anyway. And we will keep navigating them, because the community on the other side is worth every obstacle.

The intersectionality of our brand — Black-owned, Veteran-owned, LGBTQ+-owned, family-run — is not a list of boxes checked. It is the authentic reality of who we are and who we show up for. New York is one of the most intersectional cities on the planet, and our community deserves a brand that reflects the full, complicated, beautiful reality of that. We built Silly Nice to be that brand.

150+ Dispensaries and Still Climbing

We are now carried in 150+ licensed adult-use dispensaries across New York State. From dispensaries in Brooklyn and the Bronx to locations up and down the Hudson Valley, across Long Island, and into upstate New York — Silly Nice is on shelves where adults 21 and older can walk in, ask about our products, and take something home that was made with real intention. That reach, built in under a year from launch, tells us something true: when the quality is there and the story is real, New Yorkers show up.

We are in an industry that is still being shaped in real time. The rules are evolving. The licensing landscape is shifting. The market is still finding its footing. And in that moment of flux, the brands and founders who stay grounded in community, in quality, and in transparency will be the ones who build something lasting. That is our bet. That is our commitment.

Brooklyn has already proven that Black cannabis entrepreneurship isn't a trend — it's a movement with roots as deep as this borough's history. We did not build Silly Nice to be the only Black-owned cannabis brand that succeeds in New York. We built it to be part of a rising tide that lifts the entire ecosystem. The more of us that win, the more the community wins. The more the community wins, the more New York becomes the model for what equitable cannabis legalization can actually look like — not just on paper, but on shelves, in dispensaries, and in the hands of the adults who deserve to make their own choices about how they relax and unwind.

We're Just Getting Started

Silly Nice launched in March 2024. Everything you've read about us — the 150+ dispensaries, the independently lab-tested products, the 86.24% THC Diamond Powder, the 6.2% terpene Bubble Hash, the Veteran-owned and Black-owned identity — all of that was built in less than a year. We say that not to boast but to show you what's possible when you lead with quality, run toward community, and refuse to cut corners. Brooklyn's story of Black cannabis entrepreneurship is still being written. We intend to be one of its most important chapters. Thank you for reading it with us.