Bud Biz Flowers At New Dispensary

At 4:20 Thursday afternoon, Kebra Smith-Bolden cut the ribbon on the city’s newest cannabis dispensary, Lit New Haven.

For Smith-Bolden, opening New Haven’s fourth dispensary, at 169 East St., is the latest step in a decade-long journey with cannabis, and an extension of her ongoing commitment to community.

The ribbon-cutting was a festive affair, emceed by DJ Kiss Me I’m Famous, and featuring food from Sandra’s Next Generation and music from Caribbean Vibe steel drum band. The roughly 70 attendees lined up to get a peek inside the store and buy flower, pre-rolls, and gummies. 

Click here, here, and here to read about the city’s three other legal cannabis dispensaries that have opened since Connecticut legalized recreational cannabis in 2021. 

Smith-Bolden was a registered nurse for 20 years before shifting toward medical marijuana after helping her grandmother deal with aneurysm symptoms by smoking weed. She founded CannaHealth, a medical marijuana certification company, in 2017 after taking classes at a ​“cannabis school” in Massachusetts with Joe ​“The Weed Guy” LaChance, who now hosts the ​“Cannabis Corner” radio show on WNHH 103.5.

Lit New Haven, the city’s first Black-woman-owned dispensary, is an explicitly community-focused effort. As part of the conditions of setting up shop as an equity joint venture, Smith-Bolden submitted a social equity plan, which she described as an ​“extension of [her] life plan.” The plan includes donations to Get ​‘Em Boy Boxing Gym, St. Matthew’s Unison Free Will Baptist Church scholarship fund, and Citywide Youth Coalition. Employees get eight hours off every three months to spend volunteering in the city. 

Community also means family and friends — her daughter Hallena Bolden is Lit’s operations manager, and her son Hallie Bolden works in inventory. It also means supporting the city: ​“All of my staff is from New Haven,” Smith-Bolden said, ​“a lot of them used to be your local weed man – now they’re your local weed man, legally.”

The interior of the dispensary features a mural of calla lilies and roses called ​“Roses and Remembrance” by local artist Kwadwo Adae. The building, originally part of the W. and E.T. Finch carriage and lock manufacturing complex, was home to the Cheetah Club, where 22-year-old Torrance Dawkins was shot in 2013. The mural commemorates Dawkins, whose aunt Gloria Garcia met Smith-Bolden through the latter’s work with the Bereavement Care Network. 

Rev. Janet Brown-Clayton, who was also Smith-Bolden’s middle school teacher, spoke at Thursday’s opening, leading a prayer for Smith-Bolden’s ​“entrepreneurial spirit,” and thanking God for ​“creating multiple streams of economic wealth and generational prosperity.” Brown-Clayton also credited Smith-Bolden for accepting that ​“a delay was not a denial” and overcoming obstacles to get Lit open. Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, who came in an unofficial capacity ​“as Kebra’s friend,” echoed the sentiment: even when the project hit ​“roadblocks,” Walker-Myers said, ​“I knew” it would get done.

Some of these obstacles, according to Connecticut Cannabis Chamber of Commerce President Adam Wood, are inherent to starting any kind of cannabis business. Wood pointed to the difficulty of getting ​“conventional loans” for a scheduled substance. 

Smith-Bolden elaborated: ​“This has not been an easy thing.” She spoke of having to convince older Black members of her community that ​“the bad things about cannabis were…propaganda” rooted in criminalization efforts and the war on drugs. Smith-Bolden was a leader of the marijuana decriminalization and legalization efforts in Connecticut. She added, ​“growing up in the Black church, Jesus is all you need.” She took that angle to convince members of her community that ​“He gives us plants to heal ourselves” – and, she noted, it doesn’t hurt when you ​“rub a little cannabis cream on the knee of an arthritic 80-year-old woman and that knee starts feeling 20 again.”

Smith-Bolden originally got City Plan Commission approval for Lit New Haven in September 2023. At the time, she was financially backed by Acreage Connecticut Retail JV LLC and planned to open her dispensary as a joint medical and recreational store. Regulations requiring a pharmacist on-site during all open hours caused her to shift plans to a recreational-only dispensary. 

“I really am doing this for community,” Smith-Bolden said, emphasizing her hope that the store will bring in jobs and tax revenue. Asked what she wants this business to be a year from now, Smith-Bolden told the Independent she hopes ​“a year of education brings us a year of new consumers ready to take the cannabis plunge.”