New York Cannabis Dispensary Series: Dagmar – High Art Meets High Quality in SoHo

Dispensary Name Dagmar Cannabis

Dispensary Location:  412 W Broadway Soho, NY 10012

Dispensary Owner: Jennifer Tzar

Website: https://dagmarcannabis.com/about/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/dagmarcannabis/

Blazing Trails to Legal Green:

Excerpted from Honeysuckle Magazine

“Jennifer Tzar has lived a million lives, with a journey taking her from a generational family farm in Minnesota to the farthest reaches of science, to photojournalism shooting for outlets such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Interview, to styling for cultural icons including David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, and Snoop Dogg. As CEO and Creative Director of Dagmar, which opened in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood on December 15, 2023, the multihyphenate entrepreneur brings all her experiences full-circle.”

Excerpted from Honeysuckle Magazine

“At the height of my career,” she explains, “I was doing Ozzy Osbourne’s album cover, Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Dogg, it was going quite well. I bought 20 acres of land in Northern California, in Mendocino, right on the coast. And this huge photo agent who was repping really big photographers comes up to me at a party, and he said, ‘I heard you’re living in Mendocino.’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘Are you growing?’ And I was like, ‘No, but all my neighbors are.’ He’s like, ‘Can you get me some?’”

Not long after that conversation, Tzar merged her land and network into a branch of the California-to-New York cannabis pipeline

A few months later, disaster struck. The building where Tzar was living in Soho unexpectedly caught fire in the middle of the night, and police ended up finding her stash of cannabis. “I got arrested in the morning for having ten pounds,” she states. “So a pound went missing. And for having $8000 cash in my apartment - $16,000 went missing. And got arrested, made international news.”

Excerpted from Tribeca Citizen

Tzar went on to open a bar in Hudson, move to LA, open a bar there, and was plotting her return to New York when a friend suggested she take advantage of her status as a woman with a successful business under her belt and a felony. (The state prioritized people convicted of a marijuana offense for the first 150 licenses.) She won the support of CB2, snagged a license and became the first majority woman-owned cannabis business in the state.

Excerpted from Honeysuckle Magazine

Her arrest occurred twelve and a half years ago, ironically on the same block where Dagmar Cannabis now sits. The business owner is grateful that in hindsight, her experience with cannabis criminalization allowed her to qualify for New York’s Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) license.

On Distinct Design:

Excerpted from Tribeca Citizen

Her shop — three floors at 412 West Broadway in a former gallery — is more of a speakeasy than a retail store, and the design aesthetic plays a huge role in the experience. Think stained-glass lampshades and boucle lounge chairs more than florescent lighting and wire shelving.

Excerpted from Time Out

Although, when push comes to shove, the products and services on offer at Dagmar will be pretty similar to any other licensed dispensary in the state, we'll give the operation bonus points for creativity—especially considering the staff's uniforms which, also according to the release, will include "branded cashmere sweaters and high-waisted pencil skirts or trousers created by a former Christian Dior and Halston designer."

Sell weed but make it chic.

Excerpted from Honeysuckle Magazine

Tzar has chosen to create an environment that completely evokes a Divine Feminine atmosphere. She likens the store’s design to that of a turn-of-the-century apothecary, and yet the sleek, stylish space looks as though it should be used in an editorial high-fashion shoot.  

Excerpted from Happy Munkey Podcast

Tzar says, “I think in everything I have done creatively it’s always about creating a world where even if people don’t know what it is, they still want to be a part of it. So, it’s just taking all those elements and creating a world and you’re inviting people to come into it and experience it and be part of it.”