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New York City’s unlicensed weed bodegas far outnumber licensed shops by about 250-to-1, according to city estimates. But that isn’t stopping Gov. Kathy Hochul from pouring resources into cannabis crackdowns, as efforts to get the legal industry off the ground continue to sputter.
While Hochul’s tactics so far focus on hitting unlicensed shops with fines and civil actions, marijuana arrests are also on the rise again in New York City, after falling sharply just after the drug was legalized in March 2021, according to NYPD data. That’s thanks, in part, to raids on stores that Mayor Eric Adams has coordinated between police, the sheriff’s office and other agencies.
City and state officials are seeking to ramp up raids on unlicensed cannabis shops, launching a variety of tactics to shut them down. But these efforts have been slow to produce results as some stores reopen quickly after being hit for selling weed without permission. Some stores have shuttered only after multiple tries.
A Weed World store that was raided and had its illegal inventory seized to much fanfare on April 20, a cannabis holiday, was still open for business and purporting to sell marijuana in Midtown last week.
But Dan Haughney, the director of enforcement at the state Office of Cannabis Management, said he’s confident that state efforts will be more effective after Hochul included higher fines and new enforcement tools in the state budget that was passed last month. [Read More @ The Gothamist]
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