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Douglas Broughton, left, and Glenn Hilliard of Newtown, Connecticut, package cannabis flower for wholesale to dispensaries at Broughton’s home in Wassaic on Dec. 19, 2025.
Photo by Nathan Miller
The work will include cosmetic updates and the installation of freestanding, custom-made display cabinets.
Broughton said he hopes to open in April, but red tape at the New York Office of Cannabis Management could delay the opening.
The Millerton storefront will mark another milestone for the 63-year-old farmer, who has been cultivating cannabis since the 1990s, when the plant was still illegal.
Cannabis branches hang after being weighed.Photo by Nathan Miller
“I just loved the plant and how it grew,” Broughton said. “It’s a very alien plant — it seems like it came from a different planet.”
In the early 1990s, Broughton was bartending in Brooklyn and couch-surfing after becoming disenchanted with the television broadcast industry. As an Asian American, he said his dreams of becoming a leading man or primetime news anchor were dashed by what he described as discrimination in the industry.
Broughton, who was raised in Washington state, initially moved to New York City in the late 1980s, when a series of internships brought him out east. Rather than return home to complete his degree, he opted to stay and try to make it on his own.
By 1995, Broughton was regularly growing multiple plants on the roof of an apartment building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, selling small quantities of the plant on the black market to customers at the bar where he worked.
“Bartending in the city is pretty good,” Broughton said. “It was just that I didn’t want to bartend.”
His chance to leave bartending came in 2000, when he met Joe Murray, known in New York City’s cannabis scene as “AJ Sour Diesel” for pioneering the Sour Diesel strain, prized for its strong effects and pungent odor.
Broughton said Murray helped expand the operation, allowing him to rely on cannabis cultivation as his primary source of income beginning in 2000.
Broughton moved to his home in Wassaic in 2016, where he operated a black market farm until New York state legalized cannabis and began accepting license applications in 2021.
A crop of cannabis at the end of its growing cycle waits to be processed into wholesale products for sale in southern New York.Photo by Nathan Miller
He said his age was a factor in deciding to get a license and form a legitimate enterprise. Broughton, nearly 60 at the time New York legalized cannabis for recreational use, had been running illicit grow operations for decades and said the anxiety of avoiding law enforcement had worn him down.
“Every aspect of what you did had to be hidden,” Broughton said. “You couldn’t tell anybody.”
After legalization, however, he said he faces a different set of challenges brought on by bureaucracy and corporatism in New York’s cannabis industry.
Broughton said New York’s tax scheme hits small growers the hardest. He said he has to pay taxes on each plant he grows, and then again when he sells to retailers or, eventually, directly to consumers.
Despite those hurdles, Broughton said he is eager to bring a high-quality product to consumers in Millerton.
Over the past 30 years, he has developed a growing technique that relies entirely on artificial light and strict control of nutrients and moisture. He said he maintains a level of oversight that borders on obstinance.
“I’m more of a purist when it comes to this stuff,” Broughton said. “I’m not very forgiving.”
That rigidity pays off with better product, he said, even when it means destroying an entire harvest.
“We cut down an entire crop of amazing Sour Diesel like two years ago because we got mites,” Broughton said.
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Amenia Town Board divided on filling vacant seat
Leila Hawken
AMENIA — Town Board members debated how to fill a seat that has been vacant since February 2025, ultimately tabling the discussion until a formal resolution can be considered at a future meeting.
The vacancy stems from the sudden death of Councilman Paul Winters in February 2025. Since then, the board has operated with four members instead of the prescribed five.
Members were divided on whether to appoint an interim councilmember or leave the seat empty until voters decide at the November election. The debate extended into public comment at the Thursday, Feb. 19, meeting, where some residents suggested holding a special election to fill the seat.
Councilman Walter Dietrich nominated resident Charlie Miller for the interim appointment, citing Miller’s history of service to the town.
Town Supervisor Rosanna Hamm said any appointment would need to be formalized by resolution. The board voted 3–1 to table the matter until its next meeting on Thursday, March 5, when a resolution could be considered. Dietrich cast the lone vote against tabling the discussion.
Comments from residents included a suggestion for a special election, but officials said the cost of holding an election for what would be a short-term appointment would be impractical. Hamm noted that the seat will appear on the November ballot.
Another resident asked whether additional candidates might be considered for the interim appointment. Hamm recalled a similar vacancy in 2024 that became “unduly divisive,” saying she favors leaving the position unfilled until the election.
Councilwoman Vicki Doyle disagreed, arguing that a full board is necessary to manage the town’s workload.
“But we’re minus one person,” Doyle said, likening the situation to a basketball team trying to play with only four members instead of five.