“That's great!” Will Leibee of Back Home Farm said when he learned that his cannabis was the top seller at the newly opened Royal Blend Dispensary in Rosendale. “We are top sellers at most stores we are in. We grow good weed at a fair price. The whole business is summed up right there!”

Back Home and Royal Blend may end up friendly rivals when Leibee’s long-delayed Stone Ridge dispensary opens, but the timeline for that has been pushed back yet again. The opening of the proposed Back Home Dispensary has been delayed for a couple of weeks.

Leibee, who founded, owns and runs a vegetable and cannabis farm that he started on the abandoned Boices dairy farm on the Lucas Turnpike, has had plans to open Back Home Dispensary at the juncture of Routes 213 and 209 in Stone Ridge since 2022, when the farm got a two-year “adult use cultivator” license from the New York State Office of Cannabis Management.

Dispensary licensing proved to be a long process, but Back Home managed to distribute their cannabis through showcase events and other dispensaries, including the first-ever legal operation in the state. Leibee is choosing his dispensary and inventory mangers from the staff who worked for him in his Keegan Ales cannabis showcase in Kingston last year. To expedite the process, Housing Works, a nonprofit heavily involved in the cannabis space, provided assistance on the complicated regulation for things like the state requirements for a dispensary security system.

Back Home Dispensary was scheduled for an intimate family and friends opening on September 7, with a public opening two weeks later. Now, they’re aiming for some time around the third week of September. But not to worry – Leibee says the delays are just the result of simply having too much on his plate, as he’s doing all of this without business partners.

“I want it done just right,” Leibee said, “and so I don’t want to rush it.”