The Green Room: Real Conversations with the People Behind the Plant, with Edgar Kleydman, CEO of Brooklyn Dispensary Kaya Bliss

We sat down with Edgar Kleydman, CEO of Brooklyn’s own Kaya Bliss (Kaya, the Jamaican slang word for marijuana), to talk about building a cannabis business around something that can’t always be measured in numbers: community.

Coming from the traditional world of finance and corporate business, Edgar took a very different approach to legal cannabis retail. At Kaya Bliss, he says, the focus isn't simply on transactions or sales, but on the individual people walking through the door.

We talked about everything from his dream late-night smoke session under the Brooklyn stars to the protest that brought 400 people to his doorstep, the skeptical neighbor who eventually found a use for cannabis in her family, and why he believes the future of New York cannabis depends on learning how to truly serve the community.

Oh, and naturally, we had to ask which historical figure he'd want to share a joint with.

High Herstory: You come from the traditional business, suits-and-ties world of being a financial advisor. What piece of traditional corporate wisdom do you think is completely useless when you're running a neighborhood-focused legal cannabis shop in Brooklyn?

I think what's useless from the corporate world is generalization. The corporate world is so large that it tends to look only at statistics, not people.

Where cannabis is different is that it's individualized. You might like a strain that's different from the strain I like, so we can't really encompass everybody into one box, one thing.

Every person is different. Every person is an individual. Every person has different likes, needs, and wants.

That's the difference. What we do in the store is different because every person is looked at as an individual. I don't look at all my customers as one big group. I look at each person individually.

A lot of people look at how many transactions they did that day from a purely financial perspective. I look at the transactions because I want to know how many people we spoke with today. And that, I think, is the biggest difference.

High Herstory: You have a very strong community focus at Kaya Bliss. What does that look like in practice?

We try to individualize every event and every person. Your customers are the community. So you can worry about your product, or you can worry about the community. And if you worry about the community, the product will sell itself.

High Herstory: Describe your absolute dream smoke session. What's the setting? Is there a soundtrack?

There is no soundtrack. I like peace and quiet.

My favorite time to smoke would be to go to my backyard at nighttime, when everybody's already asleep, and I can just have some peace and quiet.

I love when the sky is full of stars and I can smoke and just look up. I just stare at the sky. Just silence, because the world is so loud. 

So, to me, anytime I want to smoke and relax is to be in peace and quiet. In Brooklyn, we see four or five stars and I'm happy.

High Herstory: What's the funniest way you've had to explain your role as a dispensary owner to somebody who's completely outside the cannabis industry?

Believe it or not, a lot of people don't know what the word "cannabis" is. They know "weed" and "marijuana."

A few times when I've spoken, especially with elderly people, I first tell them I'm the CEO of a company. They keep digging: "What company? What do you do?"

So I tell them we sell cannabis. And most of the time it's, "What?" "Weed." That's the reaction.

That was my mom's reaction the first time I ever told her that we're getting a cannabis license. She was so scared. She asked me if I was going to get arrested.

So I had to sit her down and explain the legality behind it. It took a minute, but believe it or not, she is now an end user.

She uses gummies, CBD gummies with THC, and topicals. That's from a person who totally thought it was the worst thing in the world.

High Herstory: What's a memorable customer or neighborly connection that's happened at Kaya Bliss?

We had a protest in front of our place before it opened. Four hundred people came to protest against us.

But after we opened, about two months into us being open, a lady came in. I'd say she was in her 70s, and she had a sister who was sick. She couldn't sleep and hadn't had a good night's sleep since it began.

She came in and asked, "Is there anything I can get for her to help her sleep that really won't get her too high?"

So I gave her something, and she came back about a week later and said that, for the first time, her sister actually had a decent sleep.

And she apologized because she was one of the protesters.

She said she made a big mistake, and she loves the place.

I felt really heartwarmed because it's amazing that somebody who was against the whole situation could change their mind because they found a medicinal use.

They found what this plant actually entails.

High Herstory: If you could travel back in time to share a joint with any historical figure, who would you choose?

George Washington. I really would love to know what went through his mind

High Herstory: What's one major misconception about what it means to be a successful cannabis founder that you've had to unlearn after launching legal retail in New York?

Everything I've learned, I utilize. You're excited because you've learned it for a reason. I guess unlearning something is part of the process of learning.

So I can't think of one specific thing I’ve had to unlearn. It's just, as I evolve, if something doesn't belong anymore, I just kind of forget it. I just keep moving. Just keep moving forward.

As I said, I live for the moment. The future doesn't exist. The past doesn't exist.

One scientist I was reading one day said that people think of the past and they think it existed. But he always tells them, "Well, can you go to the past?" The answer is no. You can only stay in the present.

So I don't really dwell on it. I think of the future as something that's coming from what I'm doing today. So I just try to live for today.

High Herstory: What do you wish more people understood about today's legal cannabis consumer?

I think the cannabis industry still has a perception that its a street drug.

I think 80% of our consumers are just regular nine-to-five workers. Guys who wear suits, women who wear business outfits, just regular folks.

High Herstory: You've navigated regulatory hurdles, community pushback, and now you're expanding. What's next for Kaya Bliss?

We're expanding into Kensington, which is Church Avenue on East 2nd Street.

And we're expanding into Brighton Beach, Brighton 3rd Street, right on the corner of Brighton 3rd and Brighton Beach Avenue.

Always, we're going to be doing community events.

We actually beautified the building in Brighton Beach, and we're going to paint a huge mural on the side of the building by a local New York artist named Zimmer.

I think New York is becoming a go-to place.

OCM has finally started giving classes to people, trying to teach them. Government may take a minute, but they finally realize that cannabis entrepreneurs need real help.

And I'm happy to see that happening in New York.

You can visit Kaya Bliss’s Brooklyn locations in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and Brooklyn Heights.