[gentle music] [gentle music continues] - I think back when I was a little girl and there was no one that looked like me that did anything like this.

They say the most successful businesses, you find a solution to something.

It's very important for me to represent as a black woman in this case.

This is who I am.

[bright music] I have been in Hudson County now for 13 years.

I'm a small business owner, a serial entrepreneur.

Currently my businesses are horticulturally-based and community-based.

I don't come from much.

My mother moved me out to New Jersey to kind of give me the opportunity to get a better education and just improve my life.

Growing up in the suburbs, I was part of a very small minority group so that was a little bit difficult because I didn't really find anyone that I could identify with that looked like me.

I love punk rock and just like the New Jersey scene is really where I come from.

As a serial entrepreneur, there was a plant shop in my neighborhood that I kind of like interned at.

I just would volunteer and hang around during the pandemic when it first started, and the guy who ran the plant shop said "you know more about plants than me.

You should sell plants".

So I sat and I thought, I definitely need to start this business.

What are we gonna name it?

We ended up with Tia Planta.

Everybody loved it.

So I founded my business Juneteenth 2020 during the pandemic and it took off beyond my wildest dreams.

McGinley Square is a less prominent part of the city.

I saw this space, it was a former police kiosk and I wanted to bring green to McGinley Square and bring plant life, and we were granted the space by the city council and I joined the Department of Innovation here in Jersey City and gave me the opportunity to rent directly from Jersey City and move into the police kiosk.

One of my customers let me know that they were discussing removing me from the space.

Broke my heart because I just love this community so much.

I couldn't understand why they would do that to me and I had to close down my shop.

I felt bullied.

Yeah.

It's heartbreaking even now because I just love this space so much and it's still empty.

So I moved forward and on to bigger and better things.

But this train don't stop for nobody.

After I made it public that I was having difficulty with the city in my shop, the amount of people that supported my business was absolutely incredible.

It blew my mind that thousands of people all around the state, not just Jersey City, stood up for me.

This is one of our last plant pop-ups.

So yeah, but I mean onward and upward.

It just gave me so much fuel in this jet pack to continue whatever path it may be.

Now I'm like taking all that knowledge I learned and going off on my own, my new partner and it's really great.

I'm just so happy.

I want to do this.

I heard that legal cannabis was coming here to New Jersey, so I decided to pursue cannabis on my own.

In the end, it was a blessing in disguise because I'm now one of the only women in the state that have a license to grow cannabis.

Thank you so much.

You're all set.

Give you a card also.

There you go, thank you.

Have a good one.

We were working on this license application day and night to make sure it was perfect.

When we got back the answer and learned that we got this license, I mean it was like the Super Bowl because I have put every ounce of energy into this, money into this, time into this that to be validated and to get that license just felt so good.

[gentle music] I didn't know who my father was until I was about 20.

It was not really discussed in my home at all because he was regarded as a criminal for selling cannabis.

And my father's been incarcerated over 20 years.

- [Customer] You're kidding.

- So that's part of why I'm in this.

- Now here I am and I have a license to distribute cannabis and my father is still incarcerated To this day.

It's difficult even now to know that there's so many black people incarcerated.

It makes me angry honestly.

With that, I use the anger as fuel to get me into this cannabis space that have been negatively affected by this criminalization of plants.

Hey there.

- I'm gonna list each herb on the label and I'm also gonna put to directions as to how you should use it.

- I've kind of just been focusing on my cannabis business so I finally have a little bit more time to just get to know my community again and come out and just do what I do, talk too much.

[both laugh] I want to be able to be a role model for other people that look like me to show them that you can innovate in this industry of people that have been the most affected by this need the opportunities first.

I believe that, and I will continue to fight for that and continue to share any knowledge I have with them.

How you doing?

We currently have a conditional microcultivation license.

It's basically the first part of the screening process I have passed.

In order to graduate up to an annual license, I need to find a location that is properly zoned for cannabis cultivation.

There are people that own the property there that once they find out those cannabis businesses are coming in, they charge an insane amount of rent and no business can survive off of that.

Prices here in Jersey City are extremely high.

I want to grow my cannabis here.

This is my city, this is my county.

I want my product to say "grown in Jersey City".

There's still a lot of stigma behind plant medicine, which is very unfortunate.

Education is going to be the factor that takes this plant out of the shadows and into the light.

Erica, can you please put down the-- - The tables?

- I come from house plants and as soon as I let my community know I was going into cannabis, nobody judged me.

I was only supported by them.

A lot of times I grew up in the suburbs, and finding that validation was very difficult being the only minority, and now here I am, an adult, completely supported my community in any endeavor I go into and it just, it really feels so great.

I say that Tia Planta is rooted in diversity, community, and education.

I feel so safe here.

I feel so cared for here.

I don't wanna have to leave.

Jersey City, it's the most diverse city in the country literally.

Every kind of person, just so respectful, so caring, such a great community, so accepting, and I can't imagine leaving.

[bright music] The opportunity is here if you're a go-getter, if you're a self-starter, if you work hard, you can make anything happen here in Hudson County.

Where you live heavily affects how you live.

I think that your lifestyle is heavily dependent on your ZIP code because that's the cost of living.

How much peace you can have, how hard you have to work to attain that, especially if it's an underrepresented group.

Marginalized people that don't have access to opportunity.

With our developments coming here in New Jersey City, a lot of the people that have lived here for a long time cannot afford that cause of the skyrocketing cost.

I continue to press on through the challenges because, well, I'm mad about it.

I'm not going anywhere.

So I will continue to advocate for people that look like me.

It's what makes me happy, it's what brings me joy, being able to help other people.

And I'll continue to do that till the day I die.

Thank you so much everybody.

Awesome.

[bright music continues] [bright music continues]