Atlantic City puts cap on weed dispensaries over fears that supply is too high
November 17, 2025
Atlantic City puts cap on weed dispensaries over fears that supply is too high
Recreational marijuana dispensaries in Atlantic City say the market is too crowded and they are struggling to make a profit.
Recreational marijuana dispensaries are not sparking the business people thought, causing many of the shops already in Atlantic City to struggle to make a profit. NBC10’s Ted Greenberg has the story.
Atlantic City has implemented a cap on the number of cannabis dispensaries in order to stabilize a crowded and still-growing recreational marijuana market, as well as help existing dispensaries survive.
Lou Freedman, a weed dispensary owner in Atlantic City, told NBC10 that the shop has not sparked up great success since it opened in the spring of 2024.
WATCH HERE“We were ready to have a line coming into the place,” Freedman sad.
But instead, business has been “horrible,” Freedman said.
Asked why he thinks business has not gone well, Freedman said, “There’s too many of us.”
The city’s new cap will limit the number of cannabis dispensaries, including smaller scale businesses, at 16, which is also the approximate number of dispensaries already operating there.
We’re grateful to see anything being put into place,” Spencer Belz, the CEO of Sunny Tien Dispensary. “We are losing revenue as our neighbors are losing revenue, and nobody’s benefiting from this type of saturation.”
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Atlantic City Mayor Mary Small, Sr., agreed that it was time to hit the pause button on more dispensaries as well.
“We don’t want to stop anybody’s dream. I just think that it’s time to take a pause,” Small said.
The cap was approved in Oct. 2025 after a city-commissioned research study led by Rob Mejia, an adjunct professor of cannabis studies at Stockton University, recommended the move.
“Some of the big things were looking at the demographics of the city of Atlantic City, looking at foot traffic, looking at the potential of the tourist market,” Mejia said.
Experts also say one the challenges for the weed market in New Jersey is that there is a relatively small selection of regulated cannabis products compared to what some other states have, so that leaves many dispensaries selling the same products.
Freedman said the cap is being put in place too late and believes it is also too high.
“I know a lot of places are not doing well,” he said. “It is ridiculous. I mean, it should be five or six. That’s what we thought originally it was going to be. And now they’re open up everywhere.”
Dispensaries in the works
The cap also raises questions about new cannabis businesses still in the pipeline for Atlantic City.
“It leaves them in a boat of uncertainty,” Mejia said. “So they’re not sure what they’re going to be allowed to do.”
Small said the city cannot stop people who already approved from setting up shop, but they can prevent more from being permitted.
“We can’t stop people who were already approved, in the process” Small said. “We don’t want to set the city up for any lawsuits, but a decision had to be made and, you know, it’s too much right now.”
Faye Coleman, an operator of a dispensary planned for Atlantic City, said the cap won’t impact their plans.
Coleman is planning to open Atlantic City’s second-largest cannabis dispensary and consumption lounge on the site of a former church in 2026.
“We don’t believe that we are further saturating the market, but absolutely adding to it,” she said.
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