offering their own product by the end of the year.
On Saturday, Sept.12, Quality High, a marijuana boutique apothecary marked one year in business with an all-day party and sale–and cemented its place as part of Sleepy Hollow’s downtown revival.
Quality High is riding two waves: Nationally people are replacing alcohol with marijuana and locally entrepreneurs are creating passion project businesses on Sleepy Hollow’s main drag, Beekman Avenue. The corner shop sits across Lawrence Avenue from a former liquor store (now Cozy Coven witch shop). Across its other street sits the Sleepy Hollow Police Station, an unthinkable location for a marijuana seller not long ago.
Matthew Nicoletti and his partner Nate Lyons turned a gloomy bodega that sold a lot of lottery tickets into a warm purple and wood showroom for marijuana flower, edible gummies, vaping canisters and gear.
Nicoletti, who looks like a clean-cut accountant from the neck up and a tattoo canvas below, said the key is getting people to come inside and see it’s a comfortable space and they’re regular, local people with kids and a couple poodles.
“People find it’s more cost effective and there are fewer repercussions,” Nicoletti said.
Their most popular product, he said, is the Nightberry gummies, taken to help people sleep. The plum-colored Nighberries come in a pack of 20 for $35, so $1.75 apiece.
While some still consider marijuana controversial, he’s proud of what his products do. “We’re all our worst selves without sleep,” Nicoletti says, adding that pot can help people be calm and patient.
(now Cozy Coven witch shop).
Nicoletti, who lives in Pleasantville, chose Sleepy Hollow because of its small-town feel. It doesn’t hurt that the ever-increasing tourist crowd lifts the local economy. In the last few years Beekman has become a hot spot of unique businesses started by locals: Sleepy Hollow Bookshop, Sleepy Coffee Too, Beekman Ale House, Cozy Coven, and, most recently, The Village Confectionary. Other Beekman shop owners stopped by to support him and warned him to expect a crazy October.
Still, he was surprised to get so many customers from around the country, Europe and Asia, all drawn to Sleepy Hollow. “It’s just a cool contingent of people who love Halloween,” he said. “They were not necessarily coming to Sleepy Hollow for any event. And maybe next they’d go to Salem.”
Nicoletti and Lyons, friends who both worked in the office side of construction, started dreaming up a farm-to-table cannabis store when New York was legalizing marijuana in 2021.
“If I’d known it would take five years, I probably wouldn’t have done it,” he said. “But we are really happy with how it’s turned out.”
Nicoletti’s father had just died of cancer, and marijuana had helped him cope.
“My father had no idea I went into this,” he said.
The long journey was mainly one of expensive licensing hurdles. New York first prioritized people with marijuana convictions (last year ruled unconstitutional) and they have none. They had to secure a store and pay rent before they could apply in 2023. Their license was briefly revoked over a technicality–which door of their Peekskill farm to use to measure the distance to a school.
The delay forced them to give up their lease at the set-back offices of 39 Beekman and eventually find their much more prominent corner location.
When Nicoletti started tearing out the refrigerators and dropped ceiling, he was amazed to find the original 1912 textured wall coverings and metal ceiling, which he restored. The store has a lounge area–though customers are not allowed to consume or smoke their purchases there. Artisanal gummies–created by pastry chef Michael Fertucci–sit in what looks like a jewelry display case set into a bar-like sales counter.
The business includes a grow farm in Peekskill, but they have yet to sell their own product after a huge leak set the process back. The whole growing, drying and curing process takes four months, so they hope to begin offering their own product by the end of the year.
Lyons, more scientific, handles the growing part of the company. He grows the plants from seed, figures out which plant has the best potency and effects. Then, they clone that best plant by growing cuttings. That way all the product comes from essentially the same plant.
Once the farm operation starts producing, they plan to offer their goods to other sellers. Packaging already proudly announces Sleepy Hollow.
- 25 Beekman Ave, Sleepy Hollow
- https://qualityhigh.com
