06062023 DAYLITE CANNABIS MOUNT LAUREL

Founder Steve Cassidy outside his daylite cannabis store in Mount Laurel on Route 73. He hopes to open before the end of June.

With great pride, Steve Cassidy directed a tour of his company's brand-new Mount Laurel quarters, including a long counter with a bank of tablet brackets, where budtenders within weeks may sell cannabis to customers.

Cassidy, of Medford, is the founder, principal owner and CEO of daylite cannabis, which was awarded its retail sales license last Thursday, June 1, by the state and expects to sell the marijuana flower to smoke, cannabis vape cartridges, gummies and other products by the end of this month.

His opening, one of the first in the 70and73.com area, is at the beginning of a wave of state-licensed retail marijuana outlets opening across South Jersey in the coming months.

Cassidy, 39, said the daylite name of his shop, housed in a former real estate office on Route 73, has special meaning.

As a young adult, he was arrested twice for cannabis possession — something, he said, that he had to live with.

"For much of my life, doing it, talking about it was very hush hush," Cassidy told 70and73.com in his shop's offices.

But now, with the state legalizing the sale of cannabis and giving priority consideration to license applicants who have had previous cannabis convictions, nothing about marijuana use is hidden any longer.

"Out of the darkness," he said, and into, yes, into the daylight.

"I think the country is going in this direction of de-stigmatizing cannabis," said Cassidy, who invested in the startup with his wife, parents and boyhood friend whom he grew up with in Cinnaminson. "It's a long road to get there, where it is just as accepted as alcohol. But it's good to see that we are on that path...to make it more normalized."

His partners — wife Kristen Cassidy, parents Joe Cassidy and Linda Cassidy of Cinnaminson and friend Jeff Walsh, who now lives in Marlton — each invested part of their personal savings to finance the business.

06062023 DAYLITE CANNABIS MOUNT LAUREL STORE

Will this become cannabis row in Mount Laurel? Daylite cannabis, left, could be competing on Route 73 with a retailer in the former Boiling Seafood restaurant, right, and with another marijuana retailer a few hundred feet to the left in the former Sage Diner. 

One big unknown for entrepreneur Cassidy is what it may be like to operate in the middle of what could become a cannabis cluster on Route 73 in Mount Laurel, which does not limit the number of outlets and does not specify how far apart they must locate.

Immediately next door is the former Boiling Seafood restaurant, the possible future home of a cannabis store operated by NAAVI Realty LLC, which in March won Mount Laurel Planning Board approval to open a shop. The company awaits state licensing.

A few hundred feet south on Route 73, essentially on the same long commercial block as daylite and NAAVI, is the former Sage Diner. That building will be transformed into a retail cannabis outlet by NJ Green Care LLC, which also was approved by the Planning Board in March. It also awaits state licensing.

Others are planning to open as well, with many receiving local approval for stores along the Routes 70 and 73 corridors. (Cherry Hill and Medford have not authorized cannabis operations within their borders.)

In May, the Township Planning Board approved the application of Hempnotize New Jersey LLC to open a store at 4004 Church Road, about a third of a mile west of the Jersey Wahoos Swim Club. Hempnotize, less than a mile from daylite cannabis, also awaits state licensing.

Continuing south on Route 73, on the east side of the 70 and 73 intersection in Marlton, sits a former real estate office that for decades was next to the former Olga's Diner, which was razed when the traffic circle was removed.

That location has its state license and is due to open soon as Highway 90, a retail venture owned by Alex Lahn, whose family business owns the Funplex in Mount Laurel and the Legacy Club at Woodcrest golf course in Cherry Hill. A 70and73.com article on Highway 90 in March quoted Lahn as saying it would open in April, but it has yet to do so.

One recreational cannabis store that is open in the 70and73.com area is Sweetspot, at 903 White Horse Road in Voorhees. The store already has had its "soft opening," and will have a grand opening this Saturday, June 10. Sweetspot is next to the FedEx Office store and in the same parking lot as the Olive Garden restaurant.

In Mount Laurel, Cassidy recalled how he at first applied for a store across Route 73 in a shopping plaza. His application was denied by the Township last October. He returned for permission for the current location and won it at the March zoning board meeting.

The Stockton University graduate, who worked after college in Manhattan for the Marriott Marquis and in sales and management for a national alcohol distributor, said he has always had the desire to start his own business.

His hobby in New York was brewing his own beer and he toyed with the idea of opening his own craft brewery. That market quickly was getting crowded.

"If you're an early entrant into an industry, that's the place to be," he told 70and73.com.

Cannabis retailing seemed like the perfect opportunity, he said, when he moved back to New Jersey and the state announced it would legalize marijuana and license different companies in the industry, ranging from retailers to cultivators to manufacturers.

When his competition opens its doors, being a small, locally owned business should be a positive, he said.

Cassidy also said staffing in his licensed micro-business — it can have only 10 employees — will be high-quality with employees who have a passion for the infant industry in New Jersey.

His team already has been chosen. When the state commission met last Thursday in a live-streamed meeting, Cassidy was there and, when they announced he had won a license, his phone lit up with text messages from his future staff, cheering him on.

Cassidy believes the going wage for dispensary associates is between $16 and $17 an hour in the area. His associates — all 10 are staring in that role — will be paid $20 an hour with benefits and an opportunity to advance in the business. He said that a short time after opening he would find his new general manager among the 10. Then he will scout the workers for a supervisor and inventory manager.

One concern, beyond competition itself, is the potential for over-saturation in the retail side of the cannabis business, he said. That has occurred in California, Cassidy explained, and with the continuing large illicit market in marijuana sales the price of the product has been driven down to the point that it is hard to make solid profits.

"What we don't want to do is race to the bottom where it is not sustainable to have a business," Cassidy said. Unlike the illegal street sellers of marijuana, licensed sellers must pay taxes on sales and, of course, have a bricks-and-mortar operation and a staff.

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