Canna Art in August 2025 (Google Street View image)
On October 1, ABCA’s Alcohol and Cannabis Board will hold a hearing on Canna Art’s application for a medical cannabis retail license. The storefront is at 5008 Connecticut Avenue, across the street from Politics and Prose.
The hearing will be streamed live on Youtube. According to the agenda, Canna Art and other cases will come before the board at 1:30 p.m.
ANC 3F filed a formal protest in May, listing in a resolution the commissioners’ reasons for opposing the license. Those included Canna Art’s location near busy walking routes to Murch, Deal and Jackson-Reed schools, and a warning letter stating that an Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Administration senior investigator had observed on August 6th, 2024 “unlicensed and illegal cannabis operations.”
ABCA does not appear to have an online portal where the public can find protest documents or letters of support submitted advance of its hearings, so Forest Hills Connection requested that information from ANC 3F and Canna Art co-owners Yared Betsate and Sajmir Rragami. Betsate forwarded one email from a community member who said she and her family have known Betsate “both professionally and personally for over 20 years. Throughout this time we have known him to be a man of principal, a good businessman and a caring friend.”
ANC 3F Chair Courtney Carlson sent FHC copies of 35 emails from the community opposing the medical marijuana retail license. In addition, Ward 3 Council member Matt Frumin, Van Ness Main Street, and Dipa Mehta, a former VNMS board member and ANC 3F commissioner, sent letters to ABCA in support of the ANC’s position.
Mehta and other community members questioned the Canna Art owners at ANC 3F’s July 15th meeting about the warning letter and other allegations that they had sold cannabis without a license and in violation of DC law.
Rragami replied that he and Betsate were not interested in operating “an illegal business or not to work with the ANC…. We’re struggling to pay rent here because we’ve been closed for more than a year.”
Canna Art opened in May 2024, in the midst of an ABCA crackdown on cannabis gifting shops. It closed a few weeks later. Vintage home goods store Bold Alley has subleasing the storefront since April 2025.
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Silvia says
Yes, people went in to that store to buy it.
The majority of the residents do not want a cannabis dispenser there as The Italian Bar is there and other restaurants. Lots of children around and of course the schools. We are tired of breathing whatever people smoke and there is already a dispenser near Van Ness. The smell is disgusting and this is promoting the use of cannabis. We want those small businesses and those residential areas around to be clean and safe.