The City Raided His Bed-Stuy Weed Shop. He Spent 48 Hours Behind Bars

Karis Thompson's problems with selling weed didn't start until New York legalized it in 2021.

A decade earlier, Thompson was a 24-year-old who needed extra cash and a shorter commute. At the time, he was working as an electrician, taking the bus from Bed-Stuy to Coney Island and earning about $80 per job. So Thompson started selling a little weed on the side. 

He began with five customers, and within six months, he was selling full time. At first, he made his deliveries on a bike. Eventually, Thompson turned the bike into a Nissan Maxima, and the Maxima into a Ford E-150 van.

His ambition was instilled by a family of immigrants who came to Brooklyn from Trinidad and Tobago in the 1960s. Thompson's father was a building inspector, and also ran a laundromat, a barbershop, and an auto shop. His grandfather, the first generation, turned a pocketful of cash into a portfolio of eight brownstones. "I come from people who know how to work and survive and teach their kids traditional methods of employment," Thompson told me. "My entire life, my family only had stores. I didn't know anything different. We're builders."

Which is partly why, by 2021, Thompson had designs on running a legitimate business. As a weed dealer, he had steered clear of a rap sheet. Still, he recalled, "I wanted to get away." But when he approached his cousins to discuss investing in real estate together, he was rebuffed. 

Soon after, though, Thompson thought he had figured out how to parlay his past into an above-board business—that spring, New York state passed the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act (MRTA), which legalized the use and sale of cannabis products for adults in the state.

Thompson's clean record was, ironically, a disadvantage when it came to getting a foothold in the legal cannabis market that was birthed by MRTA. He wasn't eligible for one of the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary, or CAURD, licenses, which were only available for individuals formerly incarcerated for selling weed. Getting a general license would take longer, and Thompson didn't want to wait. He wanted a storefront badly. Then, at last, he could call himself a businessman. 

In the spring of 2021, Thompson opened Exotic Smokes on Nostrand Avenue, one of the first unlicensed cannabis dispensaries in Bed-Stuy. He had what he thought would be a bit of a cover, too—he had applied for a CBD retailer license from the Office of Cannabis Management, New York's weed regulatory agency. Thompson created a corporation for the application, Exotic Smokes, LLC, and was quickly approved by the OCM. 

For three years, Thompson's early equity paid off well—very well. In a good month, he said his revenue was $30,000. Seven people made a living working for him, and he created a loyalty program with 1,000 card-carrying members who earned a free pre-roll with every 10 purchases. He told me that he never sold to minors.

But then came Operation Padlock to Protect, and the raid on Thompson's store, and the 48 hours he says he was detained at Central Booking.