More Local News <\/a><\/p>\nVelez, a Colombian immigrant in New York for 25 years, faced deportation after a cannabis arrest. \u201cI did get arrested for a cannabis conviction,\u201d Velez said. That led to immigration troubles despite his green card, but New York legalized marijuana, changing everything.<\/p>\n
The state started giving cannabis store licenses first to people with past marijuana convictions in 2022. Velez seized the opportunity through this program.<\/p>\n
Now, Velez wants to aid immigrants lacking legal resources amid the political climate, plus showcase immigrant artists at his store. \u201cBeing here and being able to have this opportunity wasn\u2019t given to me, I fought to have this. But now that I\u2019m here, I\u2019d love to be able to pay back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Flower Daddy stocks edibles, flower, pre-rolls and more. \u201cEveryone comes and looks for the pre-rolls,\u201d Velez said. The inventory is growing.<\/p>\n
In five years, he sees expansion where the store will evolve in look, feel, and community mission, giving back while building a lasting brand in the city. \u201cIdeally, I would love to open more locations,\u201d Velez said.<\/p>\n
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For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILLIAMSBURG, Brooklyn (PIX11) \u2014 Pablo Velez helps customers at the register of Flower Daddy, his new queer and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,61586,13652,61587,9873,9,24,63,61588,1424],"class_list":["post-146829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-cannabis-dispensary","tag-cannabis-store","tag-flower-daddy","tag-immigrants","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pablo-velez","tag-williamsburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}