P001_CN_20150420.qxp 4/17/2015 7:41 PM Page 1 ANOTHER ALBANY SCANDAL Greg David on what happens next for CRAIN’S® Skelos PAGE 9 NEW YORK BUSINESS ap images VOL. XXXIV, NO. 16 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM APRIL 20-26, 2015 PRICE: $3.00 This is what legalized pot looks like in NY Entrepreneurs want to get a GOLD RUSH: The green leafy bud must be turned into an piece of the state’s budding amber-colored cannibusiness. But bringing extract. the drug to market, it turns out, is a high-risk investment BY MATTHEW FLAMM When Jason Pinsky talks about cannabis extracts—the con- centrates made from marijuana that can pack a joint’s worth of weed into a dab of oil or wax—the Brooklyn businessman sounds like a fragrance specialist, not a stoner. He mentions terpenes and flavonoids, color and texture. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Mr. Pinsky, a dot- com-era chief technology officer and former tech consult- ant to the band Phish, is laying the groundwork for a cannabis extracts-related business called Cannastract. He also had the honor last year of judging concentrates at all six of the Cannabis Cup competitions run by High Times magazine, a feat requiring stamina in addition to a keen nose. Amsterdam’s winner, he noted, had a “unique flavor profile.” It smelled like “cotton candy,” tasted like “pink lemonade” and packed a high “strong enough to make an impression” af- ter a day of sampling entries. But Mr. Pinsky, 41, really becomes passionate when he talks about the medical benefits of concentrates he has had See POT on Page 39 BOOZE: Coming to a theater near you! P. 6 buck ennis 16 5 REPORT BANKING THE LIST New York Cyberthugs give financial giants a area’s largest commercial run for their money P. 10 banks P. 13 Small-biz loans are finally back P. 12 And largest thrifts P. 14 NEWSPAPER 71486 01068 0 20150420-NEWS--0002-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 4/17/2015 7:42 PM Page 1 EXECUTIVE EDITOR’S NOTE Annie’s no more FYICRAINSNEWYORK.COM For years on my way to work I passed Annie Moore’s, an Irish Etsy’s IPO gets pub on East 43rd Street at Vanderbilt Avenue, next to Grand Brooklyn halfway Central Terminal. In the mornings to... Queens I’d peer in at the breakfast crowd; in the evenings I’d squeeze past nce you get out of the drinkers smoking on the Manhattan, the borough with Jeremy Smerd sidewalk. I didn’t give it much Othe largest cluster of publicly thought until I finally had lunch traded companies is, according to there a couple weeks ago with an avid Crain’s reader, Crain’s research, Queens. JetBlue only to learn that the place will close this month. It’s Airways, Steve Madden, Standard bloomberg news a reminder how, in New York, no matter how long Motor Products and Sirona Dental you ignore a place you’ll notice it one day when it’s Systems all call Long Island City home. But Brooklyn is on the board. ¶ Last week, Dumbo- suddenly gone. Annie Moore’s is closing (as are all based e-tailer Etsy became the second Kings County company trading publicly. (The other is 151- its neighbors, including the pub Patrick Conways) year-old Dime Community Bancshares.) Nothing speaks better to Brand Brooklyn’s rise than that because landlord SL Green is building a 1,500-foot it’s now home to a hip, new public company with a $3 billion market value. ¶ But if you are superscraper on the block.The new building will waiting for an onslaught of Brooklyn-based companies holding IPOs, think again. Only four of bring much to improve the experience for us its private companies generate the kind of revenues necessary to go public.They include well- midtown east desk jockeys: a pedestrian-only known outfits Vice Media, which had an estimated $175 million in revenue in 2013, and Tough Vanderbilt Avenue, wider sidewalks, an indoor Mudder, which runs a series of obstacle races and had $108 million. Others that may be ready for public plaza.The last thing I often saw (smelled, prime time include Bayside Fuel Oil Corp. ($250 million in revenue) and Cumberland Packing really) before entering Grand Central was a putrid Corp. ($234 million). ¶ Although Brooklyn’s economic revival is a couple of decades in the puddle of rainwater pooling in a nondraining corner making, it may take a lot longer to build the sort of ecosystem necessary to support companies of the street.The new building and its attendant large enough for the public markets. —aaron elstein infrastructure improvements should match the grandeur and sophistication of the beaux arts CREDIT-CHECK BAN improvement compared with last Trans World Airlines terminal at The City Council passed a bill out- year’s $276 million loss,but shy of an- John F. Kennedy International Air- terminal that anchors the neighborhood. A major lawing the use of credit checks on alysts’ per-share-price predictions. port into a 500-room hotel—its first real estate investor recently told me that the area is most job applicants, a practice that such project. One major hurdle: already on the upswing, which is why her company Council Speaker Melissa Mark- E-BOOK DEAL Building a hotel at an airport could is buying up undervalued midtown east properties. Viverito called “discriminatory.” Ex- Amazon.com has reached a multiyear cost 10% more than other types of empt from the bill deal with Harper- hotels because of security and build- It is unlikely that when 1 Vanderbilt is completed in would be top-level Collins that allows ing-dimension restrictions. the next five or so years that there will be room for executives with fidu- ‘Dude, you the publisher to set the slightly downscale Irish pubs, with their older ciary duties and em- have a city to the retail prices of its AFTER SCANDAL, A NEW CHIEF ployees who manage digital books, with Two years after the Metropolitan customers feasting on shepherd’s pie. But don’t cry assets or oversee fi- run … If you incentives for Council on Jewish Poverty fired its for Annie Moore’s. I’m told it has found a new nancial agreements. want to go on a HarperCollins to CEO, William Rapfogel, who had home on East 41st Street, taking over O’Casey’s, an charge consumers embezzled $9 million, the organiza- Irish pub you may have walked past a million times PAY RAISE day trip, come lower prices. The tion has appointed Alan Schoor its All of the workers in deal is similar in new head. Mr. Schoor, 68, most re- only to learn that it closed late last year. a proposed office to Staten scope to ones reached cently served as senior vice president tower at Hudson Island to fill last year with Simon for operations at Touro College. Yards will be paid at & Schuster, Ha- THIS WEEK IN CRAIN’S least $13.30 an hour, some potholes, chette Book Group FASHION WEEK’S DUAL HOMES under a living-wage come to Coney and Macmillan. Months after getting the boot from deal between the city Lincoln Center, New York Fashion IN THE BOROUGHS-------------------------- 3 and developer Island and help CALLING ON BUYERS Week announced that starting in IN THE MARKETS----------------------------------4 Brookfield Property New York-based September the event will take place Partners.It is the first with youth cosmetics company at the Skylight at Moynihan Station THE INSIDER ----------------------------------------------- 5 such pact involving a violence’ Avon Products is ex- in midtown and Skylight Clarkson OPINION-------------------------------------------------------------8 construction project -State Sen. Diane Savino, ploring strategic al- Square downtown. by a developer who D-Staten Island, on Mayor ternatives, including —emily laermer GREG DAVID ------------------------------------------------ 9 has applied for sig- Bill de Blasio politicking in possibly selling its REPORT: nificant tax breaks Iowa and Nebraska North America busi- from the city. It ness, as a way for the BANKING------------------------------------------------- 10 could boost pay for the future tower’s struggling retailer to repair weak fi- CLASSIFIEDS -----------------------------------------36 maintenance workers and parking nancial results. attendants,as well as employees of its GOTHAM GIGS ------------------------------------- 40 retail tenants. LAGUARDIA DELAYS SOURCE BREAKFAST EXECUTIVE MOVES------------------------41 The two finalists vying to handle the Jordan Gaspar of AccelFoods WALL STREET PROSPERS $4 billion makeover of LaGuardia SNAPS-------------------------------------------------------------- is looking to cultivate the next 42 JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Airport’s central terminal will have JUNIOR’S CROSSES HUDSON hot food startup. P. 41 FOR THE RECORD---------------------------43 Goldman Sachs reported stronger- to wait at least another month for the This summer,Junior’s will move than-expected first-quarter profits. Port Authority of New York and the baking facility for its famous vol. xxxi, no. 16, april 20, 2015—Crain’s New York Business (issn 8756-789x) is Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, New Jersey to pick a winner. It’s the cheesecakes from Maspeth, published weekly, except for double issues the weeks of June 29, July 13, July 27, Aug. 10, which both reported one of their best second time finalists have been asked Queens, to Burlington, N.J. Aug. 24 and Dec. 21, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. Post- quarters since the financial crisis,said to extend their bids. The new 103,000-square-foot master: Send address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 profits rose 21% and 41%,respective- site will be cheaper and quintu- Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912.