New Jersey’s hookah king took a risk by diving into cannabis. As a returning citizen, he cashed in on the state’s equity campaign for cannabis business ventures. Now, one of the few, fully Black-owned dispensaries in the state, and with some already folding, he endures to keep his doors open and the green leaves flowing. It’s taking more than elbow grease and prayers; it is a full-on jostle.
Days before the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s (NJ-CRC) inspection, Shawn Henry carefully adjusts rolling papers in a spit-shine vitrine. He turns to eye a slightly tilted Basquiat-inspired portraiture by award-winning polymath Halim A. Flowers, then angles the painting for perfect alignment.
It is April 21, 2025, in Irvington, New Jersey. Though it is spring, the melting snow from a long winter wanes like the chill in the air. Before the proprietor of Flowerbomb Dispensary speaks, every cannabis accessory and shop decor goes under intense scrutiny–from the purple chaise to the image of actor Jack Nicholson in character as the Joker from the Batman franchise.
It is a moment Henry’s been meticulously planning for years. “Shit, I went to jail for selling drugs, so when I came home, getting a dispensary was within my reach.”
Liquidating savings from previous ventures and tapping into just about every pertinent local connection in his network, he is anxious but ready. “I had no blueprint for this,” Henry said. “I had to create my own blueprint, and I put everything I had into this; but I decided to bet on me, so I leveraged everything,” professed the 50-plus-year-old grandfather.
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Henry’s drive to be one of the first and few-owned dispensaries by a formerly incarcerated person in a regulatory-tight New Jersey is a significant motivation. “If I can have a hookah lounge, then a liquor license in the state of New Jersey, then I can open a dispensary. But in order to complete this type of venture, you really have to step out there to achieve, and so I push myself.”
After a brief calculation to adjust the store’s accoutrements, he estimates that this five-year journey has been an investment of almost $1 million, siphoning time and currency. Without saying that the inspection scheduled for some point is beyond critical, it is his only lifeline.
Looking out the glass entryway onto the well-traveled Clinton Avenue, he points to a dispensary just catty-corner to his shop that recently opened. Then Henry signals to his left, another cannabis dispensary pop-up. Indeed, he is not alone; he just hopes to make it through the bumpy initial stages of a company—and a weed venture at that.
Flowerbomb Dispensary is an ode to hip-hop and Henry’s ultimate vision of offering a luxury experience in an upscale apothecary. He made a bold move to set up in Irvington, an often-forgotten suburban municipality near Newark. But it was there that he was able to obtain the space to get the hard-to-acquire license.
Irvington was farmland called Camptown in the late 1600s. With its main road serving as a direct line to Newark, Camptown became a suburban enclave where Eastern Europeans—mainly German, Jewish, Polish, Italian, and Ukrainian—immigrated in the mid-19th Century.
Known for its bustling business corridors and factories, the demographic changed to predominantly Black after the historical 1967 Newark riots. While it is still predominantly Black, a visible Haitian and West African population began settling in the area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Like Newark, Irvington’s decline in the industrial age led to a drop in its thriving commercial activity. Henry hopes Flowerbomb Dispensary can reinvigorate the Clinton Ave corridor.
Flowerbomb Dispensary owner Shawn Henry in front of shop art before opening day on April 21, 2025 in Irvington, New Jersey. Photo credit: Kaia Shivers/ Ark Republic
The billion-dollar man
“We all can eat,” explained Henry, who is known to run a series of lounges in downtown Newark. Still operating a sports lounge a couple of blocks from the Prudential Center, the performance venue, he has an idea of the fertile business of the marijuana industry based on years in Jersey nightlife.
Flowerbomb Dispensary is an answer to Henry’s maturation. No longer interested in late-night hookah spots, he saw that his Gen X agemates and Millennials described their cannabis consumption as more than a recreational activity. “I started to see and hear people talking about the spiritual and medical benefits of cannabis and how it helps your body. How you can meditate and remain calm. Plus, people are scared to buy in the streets with the mixing of chemicals and other drugs with the weed on the street.”
Henry also expressed a population often lost in cannabis consumption–Baby Boomers, or seniors who blazed in the era of anti-War and free love, and those who consume for medical conditions such as cancer, or a knotty hip.
Yet, there is more to Henry’s rationale. According to the NJ-CRC, cannabis is an estimated $6 billion industry in a state that has a little over 326 licensed marijuana shops, which outpace New York. So he preps for his day of showing everything from paperwork to suppliers.
When I follow up a month later, he provides a somber update. Like the slow-melting snow, days go by, but the inspection never happens. Postponed by the state agency, the stop-and-go scenario has been Henry’s familiar interaction with New Jersey’s sativa regulatory center. An issue that plagues marijuana shops in the unsteady terrain of state-regulation, the Trenton Journal reported that the process of awarding cannabis licenses by the NJ-CRC was slow and lacked equity.
It would take several more months and a quick soft-opening in July 2025 for Flowerbomb Dispensary to finally welcome its anticipated patronage. By that time, Henry’s hustle is in overdrive for many reasons. Already, he stands as a rare businessman. One of the few Black New Jerseyans to hold his own license, it is a daily tabulation of losses and wins.
To intensify his angst, local news announced the shuttering of Hashtoria around the time he opened. Hashtoria faced eviction after failing to pay an excess of $540,000 in back rent. A venture co-owned by popular NYC radio host, Leonard “Charlamagne Tha God” McKelvey; former South Carolina legislator Bakari Sellers; sativa entrepreneur Jedd Canty; and Cory “Raekwon” Woods, a member of the legacy hip hop super group, Wu-Tang Clan—it seems like an egregious action to miss over half a million in payments. However, Henry revealed that laws forced cannabis dispensaries to have their storefronts in place long before they could open. For him, he had to maintain a rental space for two years before he launched. He has yet to recoup the loss.
Shawn Henry of Flowerbomb Dispensary explaining cannabis products as he starts to stock his cannabis dispensary in Irvington, New Jersey. Photo credit: Kaia Shivers/ Ark Republic
Winter is here. There might be a snowfall.
It is February 1, 2026. Henry and his small staff are working to shake off the recent snowstorm and residual ice and get more customers in. Plus, word of another dispensary, this one co-owned by rap legend, Tracey “Ice T” Marrow, closed in early January of the year.
Though the grind has been steady, the national downturn has begun to creep into the local economy. Now it shows up in regulated marijuana businesses. Due to regulatory taxes, the product is better, but it’s still much higher than the average street weed flooding underground markets.
To add to the high-stakes green game, there is a legal component threatening a small cannabis business like Henry’s. Current talks by the Trump Administration to “vigorously prosecute” marijuana possession on federal lands sent a rift in the nascent regulated cannabis industry. Nonetheless, Henry keeps his head on his operations.
“You gotta keep grinding, and things will level out,” prophesied Henry during our conversation the year before. “With every business I started, by the time I opened, I was broke, then they all started to turn a profit.”
For the Black middle-class East Orange native, it all started in 2012 when he acquired a hookah lounge in downtown Newark. A few years into being a returning citizen, he came home with the idea of owning a social club with liquor. For him, it was a continuum of him making hooch in prison. But first, Henry had to build capital and restart his life, including patching up a relationship with his daughter.
While repairing his personal life, he bought cheap, run-down houses in his hometown, then fixed them up and sold them for a profit. The revenue was the startup funds for the hookah lounge.
I remember when Henry jumped out of a white SUV and walked into the Newark-based hookah lounge like an Iroquois chief. He had just negotiated with the previous Arabic owners to take over the joint. “I wanted more than a hookah spot, I wanted it to be a lounge where you could come and smoke, but also eat good food and listen to Black music.”
Located next door to the hookah parlours was my husband’s barbershop. The only Black-owned businesses on Central Avenue, run by Black men, bonded. Often, Duane would be walking out of the salon as Henry carried boxes of smoking products into his establishments.
Newark after dark is pretty lame because there’s no nightlife. Brick-and-mortars closed at regular business hours, except for a few eateries, and there was little to do unless it was happening at the Prudential Center or New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The hookah lounge was an affordable space for nearby Rutgers University students and for the average working-class professional in Newark.
When Henry added food and a deejay and then extended the hours, it became an after-hours gem. What he didn’t know was that he brought a Black American cultural aesthetic to an old-world Persian ritual. From him, hookah and party became a theme at many local clubs.
“Young cats would come to me and ask me how to set up a business,” recalls the serial entrepreneur. “I would give them a starter kit and my contacts to get their products. I didn’t mind giving them the game because they wanted to own a business rather than being out on the street hustling.”
Soon, Henry became the hookah king, but his eyes were set on growth. He wanted a club with a liquor license. Because of prohibition-era laws limiting the number of licenses, it takes money or a serious connection. Henry did what many small companies do: he bought an existing license from someone retiring. Two lounges later, he acquired the Sports Lounge in Newark.
On concert nights and Devil Hockey games, his social club drew people and generated revenue. But the 50-plus grandfather who co-raised his only grandchild wanted to make more of his money in the day than the night. When the marijuana bug bit him, luckily, he maintained a built-in clientele. On any given day, he offers prerolls and edibles to a range of customers.
