An official in charge of helping people start cannabis businesses in New York City resigned abruptly last week as her agency was investigating an accusation that she tried to pressure another woman into a polyamorous relationship in exchange for a city contract.
The official, Dasheeda Dawson, who stepped down last Tuesday from a program called Cannabis NYC, denied the accusation and said in a statement that her “decision to resign is unrelated and was not made lightly.”
City officials have not named a replacement, and the mayor’s office declined to comment about her departure.
Ms. Dawson, 46, said she was informed of a complaint last July and cooperated with Equal Employment Opportunity investigators through September, but had not heard anything of it since.
The complaint was filed by Jamila Washington and Monifa Foluke, co-owners of Repot Box, an app that helps dispensaries reward consumers for recycling packaging like empty vape hardware.
In an interview on Sunday, Ms. Washington accused Ms. Dawson of blacklisting the company after she rebuffed her advances for a relationship, including using her influence to have Repot removed from conference panels and events.
“She killed our small business intentionally,” Ms. Washington said. She added, “If it was a man, people would understand what the problem was.”
Ms. Washington said the proposed relationship also involved a former business partner, a woman whom she and Ms. Dawson were both dating.
An investigator planned to interview Ms. Dawson about the complaint, according to Memphis Washington, Ms. Washington’s sibling and a partner in Repot Box, who was interviewed by the investigator on March 10.
In her statement, Ms. Dawson said she “carried out my role with integrity.”
“The allegations were fabricated and contradict everything I stand for and the professional reputation I’ve built over many years,” she said.
Her departure was reported by Politico.
Ms. Washington said she initially filed a complaint last spring with the city’s Department of Investigation, but it was referred to the Department of Small Business Services, which oversees Cannabis NYC.
The current status of the case is unclear. Small Business Services declined to confirm or deny that there had been an E.E.O. complaint, citing confidentiality, but said it takes all allegations seriously. The agency also thanked Ms. Dawson “for her service to the city’s community of cannabis entrepreneurs.”
Ms. Dawson was the first director of Cannabis NYC, which was created in 2022 to streamline city services to help people find jobs and open businesses in the nascent legal industry. In her resignation letter, Ms. Dawson listed the program’s achievements.
“We’ve shared a common goal: to build a new cannabis market that is equitable, accessible, sustainable and safe,” she said. “Together, we have not only laid the groundwork for a thriving legal industry in New York City, but also implemented groundbreaking and impactful initiatives that have set a new precedent for cannabis policy and practice nationwide.”
She stepped into the role in October 2022 to fight stigma against cannabis that she said was stifling dialogue about how it could be used safely and to empower communities battered in the war on drugs. In office, she led an educational tour through the five boroughs, helped to start a cannabis job-training program for people who have been arrested and oversaw the creation of an $8 million business loan program for the first wave of licensed dispensaries opening in the city.
Though she was a city official, Ms. Dawson was a vociferous defender of the state’s rollout of recreational cannabis. She said it had come together as quickly as those of other states in the Northeast that had not prioritized small businesses and Black and brown neighborhoods where arrests for marijuana were disproportionately high. When lawsuits held up dispensary openings, she helped to organize cannabis farmers’ markets in the city that helped to sell off some of the state’s harvest.
Ms. Dawson did not disclose what she plans to do next, but said in her resignation letter that she wanted to expand her impact at the state and federal level.