There are dispensaries, and then there is Seaweed.
Tucked into the Rockaway Peninsula at 73-13 Beach Channel Drive in Arverne, New York, Seaweed RBNY opened its doors in December 2025 as Rockaway Beach’s largest cannabis dispensary. From the moment you step inside, it is clear that size was never the point. What Seaweed built is something far harder to replicate than square footage: a space that actually feels like it belongs to the neighborhood it serves.
The interior leans into what the founding team calls an “upscale coastal” aesthetic, with sandy tones, ocean blues, open sightlines and beachy details that make the space feel bright and easy to be in. No harsh lighting. No velvet ropes. No intimidating counters separating staff from customers. Just a calm, welcoming environment where adults 21 and up can explore cannabis at their own pace, guided by people who genuinely want to help.
In a legal cannabis market still finding its footing, that kind of intentionality is rarer than it sounds. New York dispensaries have proliferated rapidly since the state began issuing adult-use licenses, and with that growth has come a wide range of experiences, some clinical, some chaotic, some more focused on moving product than on the people buying it. Seaweed is a deliberate departure from all of that.
For founder Adam Linet, the vision started long before the doors opened. In mid-2021, as New York moved toward legalizing adult-use cannabis, Linet began quietly laying groundwork. He researched the regulatory landscape, connected with lawyers, architects, vendors and OCM representatives, and spent years shaping a concept that could match both the scale of the building and the expectations of the community. The name Seaweed came up during a casual gathering with his team from his other Rockaway venture, Vino by the Sea, and it stuck immediately. It was coastal. It was easy. It was completely theirs.
“I had been hanging out with my staff and kicking names around,” Linet recalls. “The name Seaweed emerged and immediately resonated as the perfect name.”
What followed was more than four years of coordination with the Office of Cannabis Management, architects, contractors, landlords and licensing attorneys. It was a long and winding road that many aspiring operators in New York never complete. Seaweed did. And the patience behind that journey is visible in every detail of the finished space.
Seaweed RBNY celebrates its grand opening on Jan. 31, 2026.
A Dispensary Built by the Community, For the Community
What makes Seaweed truly distinct is not just its aesthetic or its product selection. It is the story of how it came to exist at all.
Linet and his wife Sam, along with close friends Patti DiBart and Kevin Joyce, formed a founding group early in the process and made a deliberate decision to bring the community into the project from the start. They opened Seaweed to investment from the people around them—neighbors, frien
