From Prison to Pot Shop: Inside Coss Marte’s Con Empire

“Come on in. The first class is free. Hopefully, I’ll motivate you.” – Coss Marte, Fitness Instructor.

As we dive into the new year, and people vow to lose weight or participate in Dry January, Coss Marte, founder of New York City’s three-story health and wellness mecca ConBud dispensary and ConBody gym on the Lower East Side, wants to motivate his people.

Growing up playing in Forsyth Park back when there was no soccer field and the area was mostly concrete, shots would pop off between dealers, and teenagers hung around corners where heroin was sold openly. Marte was formerly incarcerated for selling cannabis and, as he puts it, “doing dumb shit.” After his release, he began hosting workout classes in a local park alongside elderly Chinese residents practicing Tai Chi.

Marte eventually graduated to renting studio space in his neighborhood under his mother’s watchful eye. She still lives nearby. These days, the Lower East Side is heavily gentrified, filled with college students, coffee shops, and boutique hotels. Used to building things himself and without the backing of major investors, Marte relies on word of mouth rather than paying for booth space at trade shows.

“That concrete outdoor space became my first fitness and entrepreneur space. We didn’t have a permit. We were just trying to get people to show up at a certain time. But I started getting really cold, and I realized we needed an indoor space.”

After settling into his current indoor gym on the second floor, Marte credits “mainly frustration and discrimination” for expanding into cannabis. He now operates three dispensaries across New York City. In addition to the Lower East Side location, there are two in the Bronx, including one near Yankee Stadium.

To qualify for a social equity cannabis license in New York, applicants needed a prior nonviolent cannabis conviction and at least two years of experience running a business. Marte met both requirements.

“I got locked up for selling cannabis, which nobody should be locked up for. One of my former clients, Paul Rivers, had opened a dispensary in Massachusetts and encouraged me to do the same.”

Marte’s first studio was called Coss Athletics. When he decided not to name the dispensary after himself, he rebranded both ventures with the prefix Con.

“At first, I was going to call it ‘prison workouts,’ but my wife said it was too strong. She said people would get scared,” he laughs.

After serving his sentence, Marte enrolled in a 14-month, university-accredited business program, logging 25 hours a week studying entrepreneurship and small business management. He learned how to write a business plan and raise capital, but ultimately kept the company in the family. His wife, cousins-in-law, and brother-in-law all work with him today.

His mother, on the other hand, still struggles with his involvement in cannabis. “She hates it and thinks I’m killing people,” Marte says. “But deep down, she’s proud. She knows what prison does to families.”

She visited him monthly while he was incarcerated and saw firsthand how the system works. Today, she is relieved to see him channel his energy into something constructive.

Despite his background in fitness, Marte projects very little of the hyper-masculine energy common in gym culture. He speaks openly about respect, community, and the women in his life. He met his wife, Roxie, while she was walking her dog in the neighborhood. Today, they share office space in the building, along with their team.

Downstairs, while reviewing the building’s layout, Marte discovered a massive steel vault hidden behind layers of concrete. He excavated it by hand. In a city where dispensaries still lack access to SAFE Banking, the vault has become a practical necessity.

Getting High and Working Out

Why combine a gym and a dispensary? The relationship between cannabis and exercise has been explored in recent years, including in books like Runner’s High.

“A lot of people tell me they smoke before working out,” Marte says. “I don’t really recommend it, but for some people, it works.”

ConBody offers stoner workout classes and “Stoned Yoga” sessions on Fridays and Sundays. Some members work out first, then stretch afterward.

For Marte, the connection goes back to prison. He lost 70 pounds in six months using only bodyweight exercises in a 9-by-6 cell.

“We were smoking in the yard and working out at the same time,” he says.

Asked how cannabis makes its way into prisons, Marte laughs. “People act like it’s some big secret. You got caught, right? That means they already know.”

What’s Next for the Con Empire

Next, Marte plans to launch a nonprofit called ConMission, focused on paid internships for formerly incarcerated people transitioning back into society.

“As soon as someone comes home, they should have work. That’s how you lower recidivism. People go back because they don’t have options.”

Marte previously pitched New York’s Office of Cannabis Management to fund training programs inside prisons, but lost the contract to Housing Works, which operates the state’s first legal adult-use dispensary.

“We built the curriculum. We trained the trainers. But the money went somewhere else,” he says. “That’s how it always goes.”

The Clientele

During the day, ConBud sees steady traffic from tourists visiting the nearby Tenement Museum.

After 5 p.m., locals stop in on their way home from work. By evening, the crowd shifts again as restaurant-goers swing by for pre-rolls.

The gym sees its biggest surge in January. “When people start their New Year’s resolutions and Dry January, that’s when we really get to work.”

<p>The post From Prison to Pot Shop: Inside Coss Marte’s Con Empire first appeared on High Times.</p>