Bread, milk & marijuana?
Bodegas to pols: Let us peddle pot
They want in on this budding industry.
Big Apple small-grocery owners rallied in The Bronx Sunday morning to urge state politicians to allow the city’s 15,000 bodegas to sell marijuana when the drug is legalized.
“Rather than drug peddling outside of these bodegas, we want to bring them inside,” said United Bode- gas of America spokesman Fernando Mateo, who was joined by four other board members at Anthony’s Mini Market in Melrose.
“Allow us to become a wholesaler. In other words, let us cut out the middle man.”
Radames Rodriguez, president of United Bodegas of America and an owner of two bodegas, recalled that he “used to say to the guys selling marijuana outside my business, ‘Hey, this is my business. You’re making more money than what I’m making over here.’ ”
“We have battled with people selling marijuana for decades in front of our stores,” Rodriguez said. “Bodega owners need increased revenue to survive. We have paid our dues.”
Asked why bodegas, including those that have illegally sold the synthetic marijuana known as K2 or loose cigarettes, should be trusted to follow marijuana rules, Mateo blamed a few bad apples.
“Any bodega that is selling loose cigarettes should lose their license,” he said. “There’s always going to be someone who is corrupt.”