On an overcast Tuesday evening at the end of September, hundreds of Amy Sedaris fans stood in line outside the Union Square Travel Agency—the third legal cannabis dispensary to open in Manhattan—for a chance to meet Sedaris, whose resume includes roles in Strangers with Candy, BoJack Horseman, and The Mandalorian. Fans braved the clouds and light rain in a line that stretched around the block, to purchase their cannabis from the dispensary’s first celebrity guest “travel agent,”—what the store calls their budtenders.
The Union Square Travel Agency, opened in February 2023, and is proud to be a BIPOC-founded company in partnership with The Doe Fund. The Doe Fund is a non-profit institution that has helped nearly 30,000 people of color, low-wage workers, and people who have experienced homelessness or incarceration achieve upward mobility by providing housing and combining it with paid work, career training, and other supportive services.
Sedaris said she was excited to do a guest shift at the dispensary in large part because of the shop’s partnership with The Doe Fund.
“The money goes to a good cause,” Sedaris said. “Something good is coming out of it. At least I know that this place is safe. It’s New York-grown. It goes to a good cause. And it’s in my neighborhood.”
John McDonald, the executive vice president of The Doe Fund and son of its founder, George T. McDonald, told High Times that his father anticipated a future involvement in cannabis.
“My father actually helped [Gov. Andrew] Cuomo write the legislation and he always predicted that there would be a dispensary, that we would run a dispensary, and I thought he was crazy,” McDonald said. “But it turned out that he was right. He passed on two years ago, unfortunately, but he was behind …
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Author: Dan Goldman / High Times
