Smoking a joint with your siblings is a sacred teenage tradition, something that bonds you across clouds of smoke—a furtive secret you all keep from your parents. For the five Savocchi siblings, it seemed an innocent enough past time during their childhood in Queens. But it was also prequel to their eventual entry into New York’ adult-use cannabis industry. 

Now, on the streets of Tribeca, locals, tourists, and medical patients alike can stop and smell both the literal and cannabis flowers of Alto dispensary. It’s quite literally a family affair—siblings André, Stephanie, Nicole, Daniela, and Sarah, and parents Guido and Sandra man the ship and tend the bar, even as most of them juggle day jobs (for now).

“It’s been a wild ride to get here.”

Nicole Savocchi

The five siblings smoked together, but their parents were hip too—it was Guido’s cannabis arrest in the ‘90s that qualified them for the license, though the interest had been there for years. Sandra was the first to alert the family after hearing about the passing of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act in 2021. 

“I heard it on the radio going to work,” she says. “When I heard that this program was available, I’m like, ‘this is for us.’ Right away, I phoned André, and I said, ‘I just heard this, this and this. It’s going to be a difficult process I hear, but we have to do it.’ And he ran with it.”

André is the baby of the family, but he’s the driving force behind Alto. He’d delved the deepest into the cannabis world, including research in other states, and is the only sibling full-time at the store. During its intense renovation, he donned a white hazmat suit and got his hands dirty.

He also curates the store’s menu, which includes multi-state brands like Wyld Gummies, Kiva Confections, and Select vapes as well as local hits like MFNY concentrates and Umami flower. The menu has to reflect all the multitudes of New York, just like the shop’s environment.

Customers waltzing through Tribeca’s artsy alleys won’t find anyone not named Savocchi on the floor by design. It should feel like coming to your cool family friend’s house, whether you want something to liven up your evening or have a need for something medicinal.

If you don’t partake, you can still buy the other kind of flowers in the front of the store. Alto’s Tribeca shop also has a second-floor space that will one day (Office of Cannabis Management permitting) become an events and consumption lounge.

Until then, if you’re in Tribeca, why not stop in and smell the flowers?

“I think when we’re all together, we’re not workers. We all have that level of dedication. People walk in, they’re like, ‘Oh, this feels so nice here. This definitely feels like a family vibe,’ even before they even know we’re family. They can actually feel that energy.”

Stephanie Savocchi

For nearly two centuries, this New York farm has harvested organic crops, horses, and now, legal cannabis.

Immigrants have always come to the United States in search of a better life. But they can’t anticipate what their descendants might do in a new land. Lucas Kerr’s industrious ancestors likely never would have guessed that, one day, sprawling cannabis plants would grow on their family farm. 

Kerr’s family came from Scotland in 1840, settling in the Catskills in 1846 on a few hundred acres to jumpstart their American dream. Torrwood Farm, as it’s called, has been many things over the last two centuries—harvests of organic crops, a horse farm, replanting sites for chestnut trees, and a water farm with some of the cleanest water in the country. Now, the leafy stalks of cannabis grow among black walnut trees, seasonal veggies, and apple orchards. 

Kerr didn’t expect to go into farming. He’d visit the historical site with his extended family for holidays, but his dreams lay elsewhere. During the Iraq War, Kerr joined the military, working his way up the ranks to the coveted 75th Ranger regiment. He did, as he puts it, “quite a few” tours, and rejoined civilian life with a business plan contracting with the Department of Defense. But he was noticing that many of his fellow veterans weren’t faring so well. Veterans dealing with injuries were given opioids without much supervision or consideration for adverse effects, while others struggled to cope with the post-traumatic stress of combat after an abrupt return home. 

“I lost more friends to suicide and to the opioid epidemic, where the VA was just giving out pills like candy… It was insane. As I got more involved and evolved within the cannabis industry, I just said, ‘this is the answer for a lot of these guys.’”

Lucas Kerr, Torrwood Farm

Kerr discovered, as many veterans—including cannabis pioneer Dennis Peron—do, cannabis provided a holistic, medicinal alternative. While New York had established its medical marijuana industry in 2016, it exclusively licensed multistate operators with a limited range of products.

After the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, Kerr began researching hemp, hoping to eventually manufacture bandages for the army. He was living in California when the pandemic hit, but took the risk to fly back to New York and break ground on his first hemp harvest. “I just bootstrapped it and went out there with no farming experience, and just started figuring it out on the fly,” he told Leafly this fall.

Kerr began farming hemp in anticipation of New York’s adult-use legalization, and got his cultivation license in 2022; he later also acquired licenses for processing and distribution. But cannabis is a fickle plant, and after a long search for the perfect lead grower, Kerr hired Paul Bernal to take the cultivation reins. 

Bernal grew up in New England but learned the cannabis trade in Humboldt, California. His methods reflect the symbiotic, California approach. He tries to feed the grow from materials found around the farm, harness the sunlight, and cultivate for both terpenes and cannabinoids. 

Torrwood currently cultivates, processes, and distributes a growing roster of products, including flower for Doobie Labs, prerolls for Dash and Weekenders, and a new line of gummy edibles. Both Paul and Lucas anticipate 2025 will be the year for Torrwood’s own brand to launch with a line of unique genetics to allow consumers, as Bernal puts it, “push the vision into whatever direction that they want to go into.” The harvest season has become a family affair, with Kerr relatives pouring in to help prune the plants.

What makes a great restaurant experience? The food, obviously. Service is also paramount. And the space itself can’t be overlooked.

Astoria, Queens, is full of top-notch eateries, from Greek to Vietnamese to Venezuelan. Earlier this year, they added cannabis to the menu with the opening of a handful of legal dispensaries. One of the best is Cannavita Dispensary, located at 30-30 Steinway Street. 

Cannavita general manager Allie Carney and owner Marko Popovic met years ago while working in New York City’s restaurant industry. They learned the ins and outs of how to provide guests with an unforgettable dining experience. Now, they have a fleet of native Queens budtenders working with them to apply the same hospitality principals to shopping for cannabis.

Cannavita is located on a street full of restaurants and stores. For commuters and munchers on the go, they provide quick work during a busy day. Cannavita’s menu offers hundreds of choices for consumers across flower and prerolls, edibles, vaporizers, and concentrates, with brands like Electraleaf, Chef For Higher, KIVA, Aeterna, and Blotter on deck. Their team largely hails from Queens as well, giving a local texture to patrons seeking recommendations.

“Marko and I have known each other for so many years; we come from restaurants, so now to finally have something [where] we can take that customer service and put it into reality—none of this is lost on us.”

Allie Carney, manager at Cannavita

Popovic received his CAURD license along with a silent partner who had a previous cannabis charge. Both he and Carney emphasize that equity and social justice are a huge part of Cananvita’s model. Cannavita collaborates with justice-focused organizations like the Last Prisoner Project and hosts regular social events to elevate locals’ experiences with cannabis.

Beyond Cannavita, Carney and Popovic encourage locals and visitors to indulge in the full Astoria experience when they visit. There’s an endless list of restaurants, riverside parks, and the museums (we love Museum of the Moving Image, an interactive museum that celebrates cinema, television and visual media) nearby.

As Cannavita’s one-year anniversary approaches in spring 2025, Carney says that the dispensary’s ethos is to be the best in the business, and to foster a sense of “peace and community and comfort,” for everyone who walks in the door.

Cannavita’s team delivers on that mission with a rich events schedule including yoga seshes in the morning and art gallery parties at night. Follow Cannavita on Leafly for updates on deals, events, and new product drops. And next time you’re in Astoria, stop by the posh storefront, which looks and feels like a luxurious tropical getaway from the concrete jungle.

What are you smoking, New York? Keep up with New York’s favorite strains, dispensaries, and events on Leafly‘s New York homepage.