The two local men seeking to open a cannabis store in a former bar on Albany Avenue grew up in the area and say their lives were deeply affected by drug enforcement.
“I had no other choice but to be an entrepreneur,” Christopher Aponte, 42, said in an interview Monday at the site where he and partner Miguel Lugo, 37, want to open a micro retail cannabis dispensary as social equity applicants.
The problem is, the location where Aponte and Lugo have leased space — the former Choice Bar at 470 N. Albany Ave. across from Bader Field — is not in the city’s “green zone” where cannabis businesses are allowed.