Culture House Keeps New York’s Cookies Store After Partner Loses

Culture House sells cannabis under the Cookies name at 958 6th Ave in Herald Square, the same corner a national retail partner tried to lock up in court. Cookies Retail LLC filed suit in Manhattan on January 24, 2024, claiming exclusive rights to the first Cookies-branded marijuana stores in New York. Later filings show that New York claim was dismissed, and an arbitrator then awarded Cookies $22.7 million against the same partner for unpaid royalties and trademark misuse.

The local license holder kept the shop, painted it the familiar light blue, and opened a second location in Brooklyn. Cookies Retail, which said it had put more than $100 million into expanding the brand, left New York empty-handed and on the wrong side of a confirmed award.

Culture House Still Runs the Herald Square Cookies Shop

The room at Herald Square started as a Cookies clothing and CBD outlet, then flipped to adult-use cannabis in early 2024. Culture House’s own site now calls the Midtown shop a Cookies dispensary and lists Cookies flower, pre-rolls, and carts next to other New York brands. Customer notes on that page run into September 2026. Brand nights still get billed as Culture House by Cookies.

New York operators noticed, back in 2024, that no injunction landed on this store while other early shops got tied up in licensing fights. The blue C stayed on the facade. The menu moved from “no Cookies cannabis” in the first days to a house that puts Cookies products at the center.

GMJT LLC holds the New York license behind the shop. Gabriel Marin, a construction and real-estate operator who won one of the state’s first retail permits, is the named licensee. Jack Terzi’s JTRE Holdings is listed beside him in the court papers. On April 20, 2023, GMJT registered the assumed name Cookies. On December 20, 2023, it registered Culture House.

The Exclusive New Markets Letter From 2019

Cookies Retail’s principal is Brandon Johnson, co-founder and CEO of TRP, which ran marijuana stores in 14 states, several of them under the Cookies brand. In the January 2024 New York complaint, Cookies Retail said a September 2019 deal gave it “the exclusive right to open the first Cookies-branded retail marijuana stores in ‘new markets.’” New York was not named in that paper. The suit said the right still reached the state.

The same filing said the exclusive window lasted only a “reasonable period of time,” defined as 12 months from the date the first new licenses became “Viable,” and that a May 31, 2022 letter restated the deal. Johnson said in an affidavit that Cookies Retail had been negotiating for the Herald Square adult-use shop. Instead, the brand’s California companies went with Marin’s licensed entity.

Cookies is not one company. Cookies SF and Cookies Creative Consulting & Promotions own the marks, the light-blue C, and the strain names. Separate operators run the stores. Gilbert Milam, the San Francisco entrepreneur known as Berner, publicly put Cookies at $1 billion around the 2022 magazine cover that carried his face. That cover story put the figure closer to $150 million.

THE COOKIES NEW YORK TIMELINE

1. September 2019: Cookies Retail claims an exclusive right to the first Cookies-branded marijuana stores in new markets.
2. January 2020: Cookies signs a retail license deal with Cookies Retail covering California, Colorado, Florida, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, and Oregon.
3. October 30, 2022: A Cookies apparel and CBD shop opens at 958 Sixth Avenue.
4. November 2022: New York awards Marin a CAURD permit among the first 36 statewide and the first four in Manhattan.
5. July 2023: Cookies grants GMJT the right to use listed Cookies marks and sell certain proprietary strains at Herald Square.
6. January 24, 2024: Cookies Retail sues in Manhattan, seeking an order that spells out the 2019 deal and blocks other firms from using Cookies branding on licensed New York stores.
7. February 11, 2024: Culture House holds its grand opening, staff in Cookies gear, social posts offering top spenders a chance to meet Berner.
8. June 2, 2025: A final arbitration award gives Cookies $22.7 million against Cookies Retail.
9. March 2026: Culture House takes over a second shop at 807 Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint.

Defendants in the New York case included Cookies SF, both Cookies Creative Consulting & Promotions entities, GMJT, Marin, JTRE, and Terzi. Milam was not named. Cookies Retail also wanted a court order stopping other companies from putting Cookies marks on licensed New York cannabis stores.

Why Out-of-State Operators Missed the First Licenses

New York built the first adult-use shops around conditional adult-use retail dispensary licenses, a class reserved for justice-involved applicants. Out-of-state operators such as TRP and Cookies Retail could not apply in that round. A later settlement, in fall 2023, opened more paths. By then Marin already had a permit, and Cookies already had a local partner.

Marin has said he came out of the first 36 CAURD awards and the first four in Manhattan, and that he found the Herald Square site himself on the city’s property records. “This is all for my daughter Yeritsa. Let’s do this baby,” he said after the award. Cookies Retail did not claim it had been given a New York license. A Vicente lawyer’s affidavit in the case said the company could have entered through a partnership with a CAURD holder. That is the path it says it was negotiating when Cookies went with GMJT.

CAURD RULES THAT KEPT NATIONAL CHAINS OUT

• Who could apply: Ownership had to sit with a justice-involved person, meaning a marijuana conviction in New York before March 31, 2021, on the applicant or a parent, guardian, child, spouse, or dependent, plus qualifying business experience.
• Who issued the permits: The Office of Cannabis Management began taking CAURD applications on August 25, 2022, and issued the first licenses in November 2022.
• Why TRP sat out: The first round was not built for out-of-state retail groups, so Cookies Retail’s “new market” paper had no licensed New York vehicle unless a local holder carried it.
• What Gov. Kathy Hochul called the rollout: A “disaster,” after other legal challenges piled onto the same licensing process.

GMJT told local officials in June 2023 that it would run a Cookies cannabis store at the Herald Square site. Manhattan Community Board 5’s June 2023 vote went against that plan. The complaint says Cookies and GMJT moved forward anyway. Cookies Retail sent a cease-and-desist in December 2023. The reply from the other side was that New York was not a “new” market because the state had been issuing medical marijuana business licenses since 2015, four years before the 2019 exclusive letter.

$22.7 Million Followed the Failed New York Claim

Cookies Retail did not stop at Manhattan. It also sued in Orange County, California, claiming the brand ran an unregistered franchise and seeking “not less than one hundred million dollars.” Cookies, for its part, took the royalty fight to arbitration. Retired San Francisco Superior Court Judge David Garcia found Cookies Retail to be an alter ego of TRP. He found royalty payments largely stopped in 2021, even as the retail group used Cookies marks to raise capital.

Garcia’s June 2, 2025 final award is $22.7 million. An interim decision had come down on February 14, 2025. “Cookies has proven both liability and damages by its requisite burdens on its fee and misuse of trademarks claims,” he wrote. He also ordered Cookies Retail to return a trove of documents taken by a former Cookies employee. Cookies Retail asked a second judge to throw the award out, alleging Garcia overstepped and citing “corruption, fraud, or undue means.” Binding California arbitration awards rarely move. On July 14, 2025, a San Francisco judge confirmed the award and ended the stay.

Cookies has been eager to be heard on this matter for some time and is very pleased with the judge’s decision to increase the final award to $22.7mm in damages and fees.

Parker Berling, president of Cookies, in an emailed statement

Thomas O’Connell, Cookies Retail’s lawyer, declined to comment on the award. Johnson did not return messages. The ruling left hanging the fate of TRP-run Cookies shops, including 16 Florida stores under one medical license. In May 2024 Cookies announced an intent to acquire those Florida assets from TRP. No later public closing notice sits on that same wire.

HOW THE COOKIES FIGHTS LANDED

The New York exclusive, the franchise filing, and the royalty case were one campaign. Cookies Retail opened it after Cookies filed for arbitration. The campaign failed on the store, failed as a standalone franchise case, and ended with Cookies collecting from the partner that said it had been shut out of Herald Square.

Gron Just Took $61.5 Million Off the Same Brand

The investor group around the 2019 retail plan is not finished with Cookies. Gron Ventures announced on September 9, 2026, that retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler, sitting as an American Arbitration Association arbitrator after more than two dozen hearing days, ordered Cookies Creative Consulting & Promotions to pay $61.5 million in damages, attorneys’ fees, and costs to Gron Ventures Fund I and Red Tech Holdings.

Gron said Red Tech put in $10 million and Gron put in $5.5 million in 2019 and 2020, on convertible notes. Gron said Andler found Cookies and Berling defrauded the investors by killing a deal that would have paid them $57 million for their stakes, then running a “sham” Series A. Gron said Berling was found personally liable for securities fraud and for interfering with that buyout, and that Cookies’ countersuit for more than $60 million was rejected. Gron also said a forensic review found wiping software used on Berling’s computer after a duty to preserve had attached.

Those findings come from the investors’ own announcement of the award. Berner answered in writing.

Despite spending many years and more than $7,000,000 attacking Berner, an arbitrator recently found that he did nothing wrong. Gron’s award is against Cookies SF’s insolvent former licensee, CCC&P. The Cookies brand, meanwhile, is thriving.

Gilbert Milam, Cookies co-founder, in a written response

Gron said Berner has left as CEO and board member of Cookies Creative and is operating through Cookies SF, and that he is suing to control the marks. Berner has said in interviews that the intellectual property sits at Cookies SF, where he is the majority owner. The New York shop does not resolve that split. It only shows which licensed operator got the first blue store in the city.

Greenpoint Became the Second Blue Store

Culture House took over 807 Manhattan Ave in Greenpoint in March 2026, in the old Greenpoint Savings Bank building, replacing FlynnStoned. A June 2026 shop review described a bank hall stacked with New York brands. Culture House’s site now lists two Cookies Culture House shops, Midtown and Greenpoint, with pickup and delivery. The exclusive partner that said New York was its first-store prize is in neither doorway.

THE TWO COOKIES CULTURE HOUSE SHOPS

• Midtown Manhattan: 958 6th Ave, New York, NY 10001, open 8:00 a.m. to midnight Monday through Friday and 10:00 a.m. to midnight Saturday and Sunday, phone (212) 704-8080.
• Greenpoint Brooklyn: 807 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222, open 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Sunday.

Johnson’s company claimed the first Cookies-branded adult-use store in New York. Marin’s company opened that store, kept it through the lawsuit, and then took a second address in a neighborhood bank. Cookies collected $22.7 million from the partner that sued over Herald Square. Gron, from the same 2019 investor orbit, now waves a $61.5 million award at Cookies Creative. On 6th Ave the light-blue C is still on the building, and the shop is open until midnight most nights.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a CAURD License in New York?

CAURD is a Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary license, the first retail class New York issued for legal adult-use sales. The Cannabis Control Board built it under Part 116 of Title 9 of the state rules, as a four-year conditional permit with a first renewal due two years after the license is granted. Applicants had to be owned and controlled by a justice-involved person with qualifying business experience, or meet a nonprofit track. Provisional CAURD and adult-use licenses were later extended through December 31, 2026, to give holders more time to lock down sites.

Did Cookies Retail Hold a New York Cannabis License?

No. Cookies Retail did not claim it had been awarded a New York adult-use license. An affidavit from Brandon Kurtzman, a Vicente partner, said the company could have entered the market by partnering with a CAURD licensee, which is the path Johnson said he was negotiating for Herald Square when Cookies contracted with GMJT instead.

Why Did Cookies Say New York Was Not a New Market?

In the December 2023 reply to Cookies Retail’s cease-and-desist, the defendants said the 2019 exclusive did not cover New York because the state first issued medical marijuana business licenses in 2015, years before that paper, so the state was not a “new” market under the deal. Cookies Retail’s suit said New York did not have to be named in the 2019 letter for the exclusive to attach.

What Assumed Names Did GMJT File in New York?

New York Department of State records show GMJT LLC filed on February 2, 2023, document number 6721959, with Gabriel A. Marin listed for service. It registered the assumed name Cookies on April 20, 2023, registered Culture House on December 20, 2023, and discontinued the Cookies assumed name on February 6, 2024, leaving Culture House active.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting and analysis of public court papers, company statements, and licensing records. It is for information only and is not legal advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or use any cannabis product or to take any position in a private company. Readers with a contract, licensing, or investment question should consult a licensed attorney or a qualified financial adviser who can review the actual filings and their own facts. Award amounts, license statuses, and company roles are drawn from the sources dated in the piece and can change if a court, an arbitrator, or a regulator issues a later order.