Header Image: Cannabis social equity fund managers Lavetta Willis, left, Chris Webber and Bill Thompson attend the pre-opening press conference for a state-sanctioned cannabis store on Bleecker Street, Jan. 23, 2023. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Can’t say that I’m surprised this sort of thing just seems to be par for the course these days, sadly.
They haven’t come close to fulfilling Gov. Kathy Hochul’s goal of helping 150 people victimized by the state’s old, racially biased drug laws enter the legal cannabis business — and some they have assisted fear their dispensary dreams are collapsing.
But the three managers of a public-private loan fund established to carry out the primary social mission of New York’s sweeping cannabis legalization program are doing just fine.
Records obtained by THE CITY show that they earned $1.7 million over the most recently tallied 12-month period and stand to make millions more in years to come, even though the New York Cannabis Social Equity Investment Fund has faced charges of predatory lending, secrecy and mission failure. By a conservative estimate computed by THE CITY, the managers’ longterm haul could easily come to $15 million over a decade.
The state selected the three managers, who operate under the almost identical name of Social Equity Impact Ventures, after a bidding process in June 2022: Bill Thompson, a former New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate; the former NBA star Chris Webber; and Lavetta Willis, a former sneaker entrepreneur based in Los Angeles.
In an early document, the state said the fund “shall have no other purpose other than to advance the public policy goal” of financing and helping to develop dispensaries “for the benefit of social equity licensees.”
But the fund has financed only 21 stores in two and a half years.
Hochul’s office declined to comment on the fees paid out to the fund managers. On behalf of the fund, Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesperson for the state Dormitory Authority, a financing agency that is a fund partner, sent a list of services that the fund provides that contained no information about payments to the managers.
Willis and Thompson did not answer emails, calls and texts with questions about the management fee and how the fee structure was determined.
The Dormitory Authority provided the $1.7 million figure in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.
More at
New York’s Cannabis Fund Became a Disaster. Its Managers Earned $1.7 Million Nonetheless.
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