Research /Research
Queens Is Growing Three Times Faster Than Manhattan
72 dispensaries, $92.5 million, and the steepest line in New York City — up 35% since January while Manhattan managed 11%. Queens also had the biggest 4/20 in the five boroughs.
Queens' 72 licensed dispensaries sold $92,543,084 between January 1 and September 15.
That's the third-largest borough market in New York City, behind Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is also, by a wide margin, the fastest-growing one.
| Month | Sales per day |
|---|---|
| January | $302,602 |
| February | $304,962 |
| March | $334,006 |
| April | $372,199 |
| May | $356,598 |
| June | $360,056 |
| July | $394,698 |
| August | $408,820 |
| September (to the 15th) | $422,538 |
January to August: +35.1%. January to the current run rate: +39.6%.
| Growth, Jan → Aug | |
|---|---|
| Queens | +35.1% |
| Staten Island | +27.5% |
| Brooklyn | +24.0% |
| Bronx | +22.7% |
| Manhattan | +10.9% |
Manhattan peaked in June and has been flat since. Queens has posted its best month in each of the last three, and September is running ahead again.
Five anchors, no emperor
Queens has the most evenly distributed top tier in New York City.
| # | Dispensary | Sales | Share | Avg price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Curaleaf – Queens | $6,186,789 | 6.7% | $39.77 |
| 2 | Bayside Cannabis | $5,510,948 | 5.9% | $40.72 |
| 3 | Green Flower Wellness – Glen Oaks | $5,363,455 | 5.8% | $35.03 |
| 4 | Terp Bros – Astoria | $5,103,594 | 5.5% | $38.32 |
| 5 | Cannavita | $3,852,262 | 4.2% | $41.05 |
| 6 | The Cannabis Place | $2,964,202 | 3.2% | $31.06 |
| 7 | House of Strains – 29th Ave | $2,637,245 | 2.8% | $37.27 |
| 8 | Trends | $2,556,889 | 2.8% | $36.64 |
| 9 | NYC Bud – Queens | $2,372,834 | 2.6% | $30.68 |
| 10 | Polanco Brothers – Ridgewood | $2,344,112 | 2.5% | $29.82 |
Its biggest store holds 6.7% — the smallest top-store share of any borough, narrowly under Manhattan's 6.9%. But where Manhattan's field flattens fast after one flagship, Queens has four stores between $5.1 and $6.2 million, spread across Astoria, Bayside, Glen Oaks and Jamaica.
That's a geographic fact as much as a commercial one. Queens is 109 square miles of separate town centers, and the sales map reflects it: no single downtown, four or five real ones.
The top five hold 28.0% and the top ten 41.9%, with an HHI of 281 — the second-least concentrated borough in the city.
Behind the anchors, though, the tail is long. 40 of Queens' 72 dispensaries are under a million dollars, 56% — the highest share in New York City. The median store does $914,810, the lowest of the five boroughs.
The biggest 4/20 in New York City
| 4/20 sales | vs. a normal Monday | |
|---|---|---|
| Queens | $672,190 | +111.5% |
| Staten Island | $178,146 | +104.3% |
| Manhattan | $1,478,226 | +97.7% |
| Brooklyn | $672,700 | +96.3% |
| Bronx | $188,014 | +88.9% |
April 20 fell on a Monday this year — the weakest weekday there is — and Queens still did 2.1 times a normal Monday, the largest proportional spike of any borough.
Worth noting for scale: Queens and Brooklyn did almost identical dollar volume on 4/20 ($672,190 and $672,700) from a market two-thirds the size and a population 300,000 smaller.
Queens' other big days tell you something too. Its second-best day of the year against expectation was Tuesday March 31 at +60.0% — not a holiday, not a Friday. Its fourth was Thursday June 4 at +44.6%. This is a borough with real midweek spikes, which usually means promotions landing hard on a price-aware customer base.
What Queens buys
| Category | % of dollars | % of units | Avg price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flower | 34.8% | 22.5% | $51.32 |
| Vaporizers | 26.5% | 17.5% | $50.33 |
| Pre-rolls | 22.2% | 35.2% | $20.93 |
| Edibles | 10.5% | 15.0% | $23.16 |
| Concentrates | 2.7% | 1.6% | $57.30 |
| Beverages | 0.7% | 3.8% | $6.03 |
Queens leads with flower at 34.8%, close to Brooklyn's 35.8% and well above Manhattan's 24.3%.
Two numbers mark it out. Queens has the lowest edibles share in New York City outside Staten Island — 10.5% of dollars against Manhattan's 15.2%. And its pre-rolls are the cheapest in the city at $20.93, under Brooklyn's $22.25 and Manhattan's $23.23.
Overall Queens runs at $33.21 per item, the second-cheapest borough after the Bronx's $31.76.
Flower-led, price-sensitive, low on edibles, spiking on promotions. That's a coherent customer.
A distinctly Queens shelf
| Brand | Sales | Share | Avg price |
|---|---|---|---|
| ayrloom | $3,390,843 | 3.92% | $23.35 |
| Dank. by definition. | $3,040,353 | 3.52% | $41.37 |
| MFNY | $2,738,805 | 3.17% | $35.26 |
| Find (Curaleaf) | $2,634,252 | 3.05% | $69.89 |
| Hashtag Honey | $2,544,349 | 2.94% | $28.82 |
| Jaunty | $2,276,891 | 2.63% | $40.03 |
| Ruby Farms | $2,262,308 | 2.62% | $38.81 |
Hashtag Honey is a Queens phenomenon. It takes 2.94% of dollars here — fifth in the borough — against 1.63% in Brooklyn and nowhere near the top ten in Manhattan.
Ruby Farms, which wins Brooklyn outright at 4.50%, falls to seventh here at 2.62%. Fernway, third in Manhattan, is eleventh in Queens.
Three of the top seven brands in Queens are Curaleaf-adjacent or MSO-backed, and the borough's biggest store is a Curaleaf. That's a different supply picture than Brooklyn's independents.
How Queens behaves
Rain costs Queens 5.3 points — second only to Manhattan's 6.0 and well ahead of Brooklyn's 3.8. On July 18's flash flooding Queens did −16.2%, essentially matching Manhattan's −17.0%. The May 20 storm that the National Weather Service logged as flash flooding specifically over Brooklyn and Queens — with lane closures on the Cross Island, I-495, I-295 and the Grand Central Parkway — held Queens to +0.8% on a day the rest of New York State did +6.1%.
Snow is worse. February 23 brought Queens to $82,706 against an expected $271,879 — down 69.6%, the steepest borough response in the city after Staten Island. LaGuardia recorded 23.4 inches.
And the Knicks cost Queens more than any borough except Manhattan: a game-night effect of −2.44 points against its own ordinary evenings.
What to take from it
If you're siting a store: Queens is the clearest growth story in New York City — 35% since January, 3.05 stores per 100,000 residents against Manhattan's 5.71, and 2.36 million people. But look at where the anchors already are. Astoria, Bayside, Glen Oaks and Jamaica are covered by stores doing over $5 million. The gap is in the parts of the borough between them.
If you operate here: you're in a price-sensitive, flower-led, promotion-responsive market with the lowest median store in the city. Midweek promotions demonstrably work here — two of Queens' five best days against expectation were an ordinary Tuesday and an ordinary Thursday.
If you're a brand: Queens buys cheap pre-rolls and doesn't buy edibles. Hashtag Honey has built a real position here that it hasn't built anywhere else, which suggests the borough is winnable with focus rather than citywide spend.
If you're forecasting: extend Manhattan's flat line and Queens' 35% and the two converge faster than the current $129 million gap suggests. Queens is the borough to watch.
Sales figures are estimated retail sell-through from third-party analytics covering all 72 licensed Queens dispensaries, $92,543,084, January 1 – September 15, 2026 — 258 complete trading days; the final day of the export is a partial pull and is excluded. Queens' series plus those of the other four boroughs sum exactly to the 283-store, $486,121,158 citywide total, which is the reconciliation check used to validate the split. Daily comparisons use a day-of-week-adjusted expectation built from a centered rolling trend. Population is the US Census Bureau Vintage 2025 estimate for July 1, 2025 (2,358,182), as published by NYC Department of City Planning. Dollar totals are estimates and differ modestly from New York State's reported figures; shares, ratios and within-borough comparisons are immune to that scaling and are the firmest numbers here.
Sources: NYC Department of City Planning population estimates, July 2026 release · NWS New York significant weather events archive · May 20, 2026 severe thunderstorms and NYC flash flooding
New York 420 Week · Issue 10 · September 2026
Words by Greg Silverstein · @NewYork420week · @sourcatjack
