The Columbia Street Waterfront District welcomed its first legal cannabis dispensary, Erudito Cannabis Boutique at 120 Union St., with a grand opening earlier this month.
Fernando Lendof, owner and CEO of Erudito — derived from the Latin word erudite, meaning learned or skilled — told Brooklyn Paper he wants his boutique to be the “wise choice” for consumers, celebrating the cultural, spiritual, and medicinal aspects of the plant, which dates back thousands of years.
By design, the boutique offers a small, well-curated cannabis menu with a focus on holistic wellness and the plant’s healing and communal aspects. The products range from flowers, edibles, and vape pens to hash and hash oils and a variety of specialty products that are top-quality and top-shelf cannabis products.
“[Cannabis] is about healing, it’s about coming together in unity,” Lendof explained.
New York City’s diversity inspired Lendof — a Washington Heights native with an indigenous Dominican background — to learn more about other cultures and travel the world.
His travels took him to Asia and Europe, which shaped his approach to the cannabis industry because they exposed him to different ways of consuming and appreciating the plant. The coffee shops in Amsterdam — cannabis coffee shops in the “Venice of the North” have been legal since 1976 — showed him the values of diversity, community, and education, and served as the blueprint to design a cannabis store that feels welcoming and inclusive rather than overwhelming or impersonal.
“I’ve had great experiences abroad that have opened my eyes and my perception to things, Amsterdam being one of those places. It made me experience this plant in a whole new way,” Lendof explained.
New York City, which, despite its diversity and being hailed as the “Capital of the World,” is quite segregated, Lendof noted. Amsterdam, on the other hand, truly felt like a multicultural city to him.
“The experience of the coffee shop, for the first time, blew my mind. It has stayed with me to this day, because to be in community, to smoke this wonderful plant with people you know, and with people you don’t know, that’s the special thing about it.”
Erudito, a small boutique, furnished with an inviting oversized red leather couch and a chess table, which Lendof refers to as the “Mind’s Table,” invites his clients to learn more about the benefits of the plants.
“We have [clients] that want to know more, they want to learn, and they also want to share experiences that they’ve had with us to allow us to develop,” Lendof noted.
The shop is not expected to be impacted by a recent change to state law that may require dozens of legal dispensaries to close or change locations.
While other legal cannabis stores refer to their employees as “budtenders,” Lendof’s team members are “cannabis curators,” like Gimex, who qualified for New York’s medical marijuana card to treat a chronic illness as soon as medical marijuana was legalized.
Gimex studied the effects of different strains and their terpenes in treating her chronic illness.
“I became such a regular at these dispensaries, they were like, ‘You should head into cannabis,'” she said.
Her focus is to educate Erudito’s client about the “magic” plant’s healing properties.
“[Cannabis] is not just something that’s going to make you feel good, like high, but it’s also going to help you feel good wellness-wise,” Gimex noted. “It has all those different receptors that help you feel great, help with inflammation, help with sleep. We try to destigmatize it and make it seem friendly and accessible for all.”
Erudito Cannabis Boutique is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, and from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sundays.
