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Mayor Eric Adams took another swing at taking down the city’s thousands of illegal marijuana shops Monday by threatening landlords and building owners who rent to them, in what City Hall said was ”a new front in the Adams administration’s efforts to combat the proliferation of illegal, unlicensed smoke shops.”
To do that, the city’s sheriff and his team sent letters to the landlords and owners of 50 buildings across the city, warning them that they could be liable for the unlicensed sale of marijuana by their tenants. It’s the latest in two years of efforts, so far mostly unsuccessful, to crack down on unlicensed operations that have flourished even as licensed ones have struggled to get off the ground.
The shops in the buildings receiving these new warnings have already been fined more than $7 million for selling illegal, unauthorized marijuana, according to City Hall. There are currently just nine legal storefronts selling marijuana in New York City, according to the state’s Office of Cannabis Management.
“To support the emerging, legal cannabis market, we must go after the bad actors who are breaking the law,” the mayor said in a statement.
Building owners whose tenants sell illegal tobacco or cannabis could face penalties of up to $1,000 a day once action is taken, the letter said. Those civil penalties could increase to $5,000 – and the cost of the city’s attorney and other fees – if a building owner doesn’t evict an illegal shop.
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