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This article is the second in a three-part series. View part one here.
Montclair’s retail cannabis market shows signs of returning with two shops within blocks of each other making visible progress toward opening three years after the last local retailer’s short-lived stay and 14 years after becoming the first New Jersey town to welcome medical marijuana.
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Montclair’s Jake Kushner said last week that he plans to open the 2,500-square-foot dispensary, Kush Connection, at 665-679 Bloomfield Ave. in June on the site of what was long a car dealership for DeCozen Chrysler Jeep Dodge. He secured Planning Board approval last summer.
On Friday, butcher paper covered the storefront. And in a corner of the window, a logo displayed a cannabis leaf broadcasting from a radio tower in keeping with the shop’s musical theme. It’s a family operation, and this is a nod to Kushner’s parents, Steve and Patty Steele Kushner, and their successful careers in radio broadcast.
“As someone who’s grown up in Montclair, it’s a space that I’ve always looked at and admired,” Kushner, 31, said as he walked a reporter through the shop. “I’ve always felt very strongly about this space as a retail space and mostly because of parking. We all know how bad the parking situation is in Montclair.”
Pairing Marijuana, Music
Construction on the 28-space parking lot remained in progress. And inside, freshly installed glass showcases and racks awaited their anticipated use.
Kushner, a graduate of the University of Colorado Boulder, who works as a writer for iHeartPodcasts, said the plan remains for the dispensary to be music-themed, “almost like a Hard Rock Café of dispensaries, in a way, but not just rock.”
“I wanted to make it something different and special, something that fits the Montclair landscape. I felt that cannabis and music go well together,” Kushner said. “It just seemed like a match made in heaven.”
He said he is looking forward to having, among other products, cannabis from Genuine Grow, Andrew Marshall’s indoor cannabis farm on Pine Street.
And at least one of Kushner’s colleagues in cannabis may not be far behind in setting up shop.
A few blocks away at 516 Bloomfield Ave. signs for Night Owl Dispensary proclaim, “COMING SOON!” at the former location of a CVS Pharmacy. Construction permit notices posted in the windows authorize the subdivision of the former pharmacy into three separate spaces.
Night Owl owner Eric Payne, a 40-year-long career actor, who has lived in Montclair for over a decade, received Planning Board approval for the space last February, after scrapping plans to open in the former DLV Lounge space, also on Bloomfield Avenue. Montclair Local reached out to Payne for details last week. We’ll let you know when we have an update.
Montclair’s third retail cannabis license, approved by the Township Council in January 2025, is held by High Hills NJ LLC for 586 Bloomfield Ave., the former site of a Dunkin’ Donuts. There was no visible sign of progress at the location when a reporter visited last week. And High Hills NJ LLC is not listed as having a state license. Efforts to reach the business by phone were not successful.
While Montclair has been without retail cannabis for the past few years, Kush Connection won’t be the town’s first.
Greenleaf Compassion Center became the first medical cannabis establishment in New Jersey in 2012, setting up shop at 395 Bloomfield Avenue. Ascend Cannabis reopened the space for medical cannabis in 2021. But the store’s move to recreational sales prompted a legal squabble with township officials over the permitting. And in 2023, Ascend took its business to Wharton, a 7,400 person borough in Morris County.
Fast forward three years and Kushner is upbeat about his upcoming business.
“I’m excited to have this dispensary be, hopefully, a vibrant part of the Montclair landscape,” Kushner said. “We’re going to stay involved in the community and be something that the town can be proud of, have one of the better dispensaries in the state.”
Email reporter Matt Kadosh at matt@montclairlocal.news
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