localized date
Current Time
.png)
.png)
Cannabis entrepreneur Gabe Perlow got into the Pennsylvania market at the right time, got out at the right time, and has now returned — a difficult feat given the state’s tight control on who can operate in the industry.
Meredith Buettner Schneider, executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition, an industry association, does not anticipate new permits becoming available until recreational adult use is legalized.
As a result, barriers to entering the market remain high, she said.
Existing permits are not freely transferable either, according to cannabis industry lawyer Seth Goldberg. “So, you're creating two barriers to entry,” he said.
Perlow first entered the market in 2017 when his company, PurePenn LLC, became one of the first to be granted a permit in Pennsylvania, allowing them to open a growing and processing facility in McKeesport.
After selling the company in 2020 to multi-state operator Trulieve for an upfront payment of $46 million, Perlow and his business partners parlayed their success into new opportunities in other states: Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois, before landing back in their home state.
In 2022, Perlow and his partners started Rooted Management Services. The company offers cannabis businesses a range of services, including help with permit applications, facility management, and exit strategy.
Perlow returned to Pennsylvania’s cannabis industry in 2024, when Tri-Mountain Pure hired Rooted Management Services to revitalize a grow facility on Pittsburgh’s North Side. He is listed as a principal, financial backer, and operator for Tri-Mountain Pure on an affiliates list provided by the Department of Health.
“It took me a round trip to get back to PA,” he said. “It’s good to be back here.”
In February, the facility had its first harvest, Perlow said.
Now, Tri-Mountain Pure plans to open a new medical cannabis dispensary in Pittsburgh’s Strip District under the brand Dark Matter. The store is expected to open in mid to late May, pending regulatory approvals, he said.
Across the state, the medical marijuana program has 30 operational grower-processors and 185 dispensaries, as of November 2025.
In southwestern Pennsylvania, there are dozens of medical cannabis dispensaries according to a map on the Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Program website.
But Perlow’s reintroduction to the Pennsylvania market was serendipitous, and a little lucky, he said.
Before entering the cannabis industry, Perlow worked as an attorney for McKnight Realty Partners, a Pittsburgh-based real estate company.
When Pennsylvania created the Medical Marijuana Program in 2016 — legalizing cannabis use for the first time in state history — he said he saw an opportunity and assembled a group of investors to form PurePenn.
In 2017, after a competitive application process, the Department of Health granted an initial batch of 12 grower-processor permits and 27 dispensary permits. PurePenn was among them. A year later, the state approved an additional 13 grower-processor permits, 23 dispensary permits, and three clinical registrant permits.
In 2023, new legislation slightly expanded the potential number of permits available.
When Tri-Mountain Pure approached Perlow about managing a cannabis company, they did not have a location or a permit, according to former Tri-Mountain Pure partner Neal DeAngelo.
“We needed to identify a good operator that can operate the facility,” DeAngelo said. “So, we went out and did our due diligence, and we were really impressed with Gabe and the Rooted team.”
Perlow said he knew of a grow facility sitting empty on the North Side. “So, it’s just sitting here empty,” Perlow said. “I’m in Pittsburgh. I know this building is empty. We want to get back into the market, but we don’t want to raise $15 million to build a new building. We had to do a little bit of this work, the work here, to get this building back operational.”
But the location already had some built-out canopy space, the space for growing plants, he said. “We were back in Pennsylvania for almost nothing.”
The Department of Health notified Tri-Mountain Pure that it approved its grower-processor permit in June 2025 and its dispensary permit in January 2026, according to letters from the department. Each dispensary can have up to three separate locations.
The new Dark Matter dispensary will have “a spacey feel to it” and include an enclosed parking lot with a walk-up window, Perlow said.
“You know, a lot of people are self-conscious about walking through a dispensary,” he said. “You pull in, nobody sees you park or walk in.”
There are currently Dark Matter dispensaries in New Mexico and Oregon. Perlow is not affiliated with these dispensaries.
Hannah Frances Johansson is a reporter for the Pittsburgh Media Partnership newsroom. She holds a master's degree from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Reach her at hannah.johansson@pointpark.edu.
The PMP Newsroom is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in southwestern Pennsylvania. Find out more information on foundation and corporate funders here.
Header image: Gabe Perlow, principal at Rooted Management Services LLC, poses in front of future dispensary at 2400 Penn Ave., in Pittsburgh’s Strip District on March 26, 2026. Hannah Frances Johansson/PMP
.png)
