If you're into cannabis, you might be wondering why 420 Bliss, at Brunswick Plaza, has changed its name recently.
Well, it turns out that the owners of 420 Bliss have joined the Just a Little Higher chain of cannabis dispensaries, the rest of which are all in NYC. While there is still an ad on a rolling billboard at Hoosick & 8th Streets, with the 420 Bliss name, the logo was removed from the building within the last month or so. Still, it's one of at least three dispensaries in the city, with one on River Street, near the Green Island Bridge, and a new one opened recently on Congress Street.
Plus, a new dispensary, Bloom Brothers, is set to open later this year in Menands in the former Walgreens on Broadway. Cannabis has become big business in a very short period of time.
============================================
Rite Aid has closed all of its stores after filing for chapter 11, and that includes the two remaining locations in town, one on the corner of Hoosick Street & Burdett Avenue, the other at Hudson Valley Plaza. A 3rd, across from Hannaford on 126th Street, was converted to a Walgreens a few years back.
Word I'm reading is that Walgreens & CVS could be going, too, as consumers would rather kill two birds with one stone, and pick up their prescripions at the in-store pharmacies at Walmart, Target, Hannaford, or Price Chopper.
I remember when Rite Aid was in downtown, having taken over the space previously occupied by WT Grant's department store at Broadway & 3rd Streets back in the day. Some of my classmates worked there after school and some weekends to raise money for college. Today, that space is filled with the Tech Valley Center of Gravity, and that ain't going anywhere.
===============================================
I had a shopkeeper tell me once that some of the homeless panhandlers prefer to be out on the streets, unwilling to get jobs or rent apartments, to avoid responsibility.
Seems as though Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello wants to do something about this quality of life issue.
Like the rest of us, Madame Mayor is tired of seeing the same people roaming downtown and other parts of the city, begging for change, claiming to want to buy coffee or a meal, but chances are, these folks would rather waste the money----and their brains----on alcohol. Seems there's a new law on the books, or soon will be, that, in the eyes of commenters on reddit, may actually make things worse.
A point of emphasis is that citizens are being told it's okay to say no to these panhandlers, especially the overly aggressive idiots who are more desperate than others. There are morons who will stand near the Collar City Bridge or in the driveway at Walmart, putting their lives at risk, holding signs that claim they're homeless, but how much do you want to wager they're not, and they're running a scam. There's been one fellow who's been chased off the property at Stewart's on Congress Street, and at I Love Pizza on 4th Street, multiple times for loitering, but he keeps coming back, largely because he's unwilling to better his station in life.
Some people won't learn. Their loss.