“This plant is doing something with a purpose,” says Jennifer Tzar, before slyly describing that the female vibrations of cannabis mean that “It’s horny, straight up.”
Watch Honeysuckle's exclusive interview with Dagmar Cannabis owner Jennifer Tzar:
Who Is Dagmar Cannabis Owner Jennifer Tzar?
As the owner of Dagmar Cannabis, a stunning Soho dispensary located at 412 Broadway, Tzar has chosen to create an environment that completely evokes a Divine Feminine atmosphere. She likens the store’s design to that of a turn-of-the-century apothecary, and yet the sleek, stylish space looks as though it should be used in an editorial high-fashion shoot.
“I think there’s a lot of room for growth,” the entrepreneur observes. “That was going through my mind… as a woman, what kind of environment would I want to be around? And then the plant itself kind of spoke to me. It’s female, it’s witchy, it’s magical. It’s using sex hormones. There’s a lot of stuff going on there. So I combined all these things into my head and came up with this aesthetic."
Farm To Tableau: Jennifer Tzar's Beginnings
It’s an appropriate emblem for the founder herself, who built a noteworthy career as a photojournalist and celebrity stylist before venturing into the wild world of cannabis. Tzar has always been a woman of multitudes. She grew up on a self-sustaining farm in Minnesota that was in her family for five generations, so she felt a genuine connection to plants and the Earth.
Was cannabis part of that background? “The first time I smoked was with my dad as a teenager,” Tzar recalls. Though it seemed to have made a positive impression on her at the time, she notes “I didn’t smoke again or drink till I was 34 and then I discovered it. But the thing I found about cannabis was that it put me in touch with deeper parts of myself. I really found that I was learning a lot about myself and life and doing some really deep thinking.”
Jennifer Tzar's Photographic Journey: Fashion, Travel, Science, And War
After high school, she pursued her passionate interests in science and art, getting her college degree in the former at the University of Minnesota and then entering the fashion industry when she moved to New York City. Initially starting out as a model, the artist realized she enjoyed activities behind the camera more. She developed incredible skills at photography and styling; her work appeared in outlets such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Interview Magazine, and her clientele included A-listers like Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, and Bjork.
Itching to expand her horizons, Tzar spent the next few years traveling the globe, shooting work diverging from Conde Nast Traveler spreads to underwater exploration and archeological digs for Discover magazine. In 1999, she accompanied journalist and publisher Bob Guccione Jr. to the warzone in Kosovo, where she documented the fighting and mass genocide occurring in the country - a rare feat because this happened during NATO’s bombing of the region and journalists were not allowed in the area at the time.
Following that dangerous experience, Tzar returned to the United States for new challenges in the music industry. She shot over 30 music videos and numerous album covers for artists leading the Billboard charts. This would lead to her first foray into cannabis culture.
How Did Jennifer Tzar's Music Photography Lead Her To Cannabis?
“At the height of my career,” she explains, “I was doing Ozzy Osbourne’s album cover, Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Dogg, it was going quite well. I bought 20 acres of land in Northern California, in Mendocino, right on the coast. And this huge photo agent who was repping really big photographers comes up to me at a party, and he said, ‘I heard you’re living in Mendocino.’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘Are you growing?’ And I was like, ‘No, but all my neighbors are.’ He’s like, ‘Can you get me some?’”
Not long after that conversation, Tzar merged her land and network into a branch of the California-to-New York cannabis pipeline. “Next thing I know, I have five pounds shipped out and making $10,000 in like a minute.” Reflecting that this was “cool, but kind of dangerous,” she intended to leave it alone. “But this agent kept bugging me. ‘Get me more, get me more.’ My neighbors are like, ‘Sell more, sell more.’ So I kind of stepped into it and I got really addicted to it.”
A few months later, disaster struck. The building where Tzar was living in Soho unexpectedly caught fire in the middle of the night, and police ended up finding her stash of cannabis. “I got arrested in the morning for having ten pounds,” she states. “So a pound went missing. And for having $8000 cash in my apartment - $16,000 went missing. And got arrested, made international news.”
New Beginnings And A New York Cannabis License
Her arrest occurred twelve and a half years ago, ironically on the same block where Dagmar Cannabis now sits. The business owner is grateful that in hindsight, her experience with cannabis criminalization allowed her to qualify for New York’s Conditional Adult Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) license. But even going for the license took some convincing.
“When this license popped up, I was like, ‘I have no desire to do a cannabis dispensary,’” she remembers. “I’ve been in cannabis dispensaries. Like, yuck. It’s not where I’m going to spend my life.”
Yet Tzar had opened brick-and-mortar businesses before, such as OR Gallery and Tavern in Hudson, New York, and Oracle Tavern in Los Angeles, which was one of the city’s hottest bars until its closure in August 2023. A friend encouraged the innovator to go for the opportunity in the latest industrial revolution, and as she fantasized about the possibilities, Tzar finally decided to take the leap.
Dagmar opened on December 15, 2023 to a cheering crowd and the praise of New York government officials and cannabis industry leaders. People love the retailer’s luxe sensibility and top-quality products. The store’s staff may be the best outfitted in the state, as their uniforms were created by a former Christian Dior and Halston designer. Most importantly, the space feels welcoming to women everywhere, just as Tzar envisioned.
Of course, the whole point of the place is to empower people to journey to somewhere deeper inside themselves, as the company’s founder does with cannabis. And, she adds, as we can see within the plant. “If you look at it under the microscope, it’s just covered in crystals and oozing – it’s just unbelievable,” the artist-scientist asserts. “We don’t always think of it like that.”
For more about Dagmar, visit dagmarcannabis.com.
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Written By:
Sam C. Long is Honeysuckle's Creative Director. He is a filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. Find out more about Sam at samclong.com.
@tissuekulture (IG)
Ronit Pinto is founder and publisher of the award-winning creative media house Honeysuckle Media, Inc. A journalist, filmmaker and producer, Ronit has spearheaded many groundbreaking initiatives such as the first campaign to feature cannabis and hemp brands on Times Square billboards, which changed decades of advertising in NYC. Among her and Honeysuckle's honors, Ronit won the Green Market Report Women in Media Leadership Award in 2022 and was named a New York Cannabis Power Player by AMNY in 2023.
@honey_ronit (IG)
@honey_ronit (Twitter)
Jaime Lubin is Honeysuckle's Editor-At-Large. Her writing has appeared in HuffPost, Observer, Billboard and more. Also an actress and singer, she can be found on Twitter and Instagram.
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@jaimelubin (Twitter)
Video Edited By:
Jessica D'Aniello is a photographer, producer, and digital creator currently studying at Hofstra University. She is the associate producer for Hofstra's Directors Cut TV series, and the social media manager for Her Campus Hofstra, the university's chapter of the nation's leading publication for college students.
@jessica.daniello (IG)
@jessicas_media (IG)
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Featured image: Dagmar Cannabis owner Jennifer Tzar (C) Sam C. Long / Honeysuckle Media, Inc. @tissuekulture
