By Gus Saltonstall
Over the past month and a half, illegal smoke shops have been forcibly shuttered at an unprecedented rate in New York City, according to a news release from Mayor Eric Adams. And that includes on the Upper West Side.
At the beginning of May, Mayor Adams unveiled “Operation Padlock to Protect,” a multi-agency enforcement campaign that conducts regular inspections of alleged illegal smoke shops, before subsequently closing them and padlocking their doors.
Previously, fewer authorities had the ability to inspect the alleged illegal smoke shops, and they were being closed down at a much slower rate, and reopening as soon as the next day. Under the current push, the smoke shops remain shuttered and padlocked on a much more consistent basis.
In the past month, many locals have emailed West Side Rag with news that a nearby illegal smoke shop has been shuttered and padlocked. These closures are challenging to report, as the operators of the shops have the ability to either pay fines or appear at an administrative trial with the city and reopen. We didn’t want to write that a smoke shop was closed, only to have you walk by it two days later and see it open.
However, Councilmember Gale Brewer, who was a strong voice, along with Councilmember Shaun Abreu, in the effort to expand the jurisdiction of local law enforcement to conduct inspections, provided West Side Rag with a list of Upper West Side illegal smoke shops, and those near the neighborhood, that have recently been and remain closed:
- Smoke ‘n Toke: 309 West 57th Street
- Amazing Smoke Shop: 208 Columbus Avenue
- Royal Convenience: 313 Amsterdam Avenue
- Red Eye Remedy Club: 1875 Broadway
- Mr. Empire: 564 Amsterdam Avenue
- Pure Green: 128 West 72nd Street
- Munch and OOO’s: 200 West End Avenue
- Leo Organics: 2047 Broadway
- Endo Guardz: 2416 Broadway
- Vape and Dispensary: 2442 Broadway
- Broadway CBD: 2457 Broadway
- 96 Tobacco Shop: 2571 Broadway
- Muddy’s Dispo: 252 West 108th Street
- Come Say High: 2717 Broadway
“There is no ambiguity in the law: it is illegal to sell cannabis without a license. For the first time, ambiguity on how to enforce the law is now gone,” Brewer said in a news release. “I became involved in closing unlicensed cannabis retailers for two reasons. First, I needed to respond to concerned parents. Second, I wholeheartedly support the state cannabis law and am dedicated to its success.”
The following sign appears on many of the shuttered smoke shops.
Please let us know in the comment section the names and addresses of permanently shuttered shops that we may have missed.
Also let us know if any of the above-mentioned closed smoke shops have reopened.
Subscribe to WSR’s free email newsletter here.
Hashing out this law is high on the list of chronic problems
Good riddance.
Wonderful job by New York State in creating the gray cannabis gray market by delaying the roll-out by three years, all due to a combination of disfunction, incompetence, and misplaced equity concerns.
Wonderful job by the NYPD and Sheriff needing to be poked and prodded to do their job and shut down these illegal operators.
There seems to be a bipartisan consensus to ensure that this city and state is ungovernable.
Thank you for publishing this Gale Brewer press release.
Only 14 so far. Gotta pick-up the pace.
Yes, close all smoke shops! They just bring crime.
They actually prevent crime. Your neighbors and friends who used to buy marijuana in back alleys or from their “guy” now buy it safely in well lit stores out in the open.
Or you can just go the licensed spots like Housing Works.
Some of them are good people.
Yeah, real service-to-the-world people. Grand calling. They’re in it to serve and help. I don’t know what we’ll do if they weren’t here.
How many arrests have there been, and why haven’t there been more?
The CBD place replaced a cafe that lasted like what 2 days. I really hope a cafe returns there. I loved the one that had been there. Connected to the Italian restaurant.
I don’t know if the weed shop on 91sr was raided as well. But I am so glad they have been closed.
If you mean 2459 Broadway, yes it was raided. I walked by when it was underway.
Interesting fact – as strange as it seems to be –
Been smoking pot since the mid 1960’s.
Enjoyed it to no end, including the secret meetings with the various pushers.
And yet, within a year of pot becoming legal in NY state I started to smoke less and less, and for the past six months I have not had a toke, not even one.
And I don’t need it and I don’t miss it either.
Go figure.
For decades I couldn’t wait to have it become legal.
Now that it is – I quit it.
Crazy man, crazy.
Really amazing it took this long. And what on earth are smoke shops selling if not weed??
It took this long because of the state’s delay in rolling out legal cannabis shops. Now that there are legal entities to “protect” and to force the city’s hand, the city is going after illegal shops. This was inevitable. The city allowed the illegal shops to meet the demand for a legal product until the state could get their act together and license actual legal shops. It’s all about economics and nothing else.
Are these business owners really that ignorant that they thought they wouldn’t need a license to sell cannabis products. Did they do their due diligence? I’m surprised to see so many of these businesses going through closures because they didn’t do their homework. I must be missing something.
Guessing they knew what they were doing. They made a lot of cash while doing it – figured they could load up before being shut down. Just a guess, but I cannot believe they thought what they were doing was legal….
It looks like Best Budz on 100th and Broadway closed, though it doesn’t appear to have been raided, perhaps they did so voluntarily to save their inventory. Good riddance, these stores are a nuisance. There is smoking both in and out of the stores. The blocks are better without them.
I can’t believe they would raid one store on 72nd and ignore the other two illegal pot shops also on 72nd a few doors down.
Weren’t the others previously shuttered?
SO happy to see this, especially right before the election.
Great! Let’s close the smoke shops so we can all go back to complaining about vacant storefronts.
Now could they please open 1 or 2 legal, licensed places in the neighborhood? I honestly don’t think we should shutter them all and then not have any recourse for the hardworking people who lose their livelihoods.
There are 2 legal ones that I am aware of. Just a Little Higher on W. 72nd St between Columbus and Amsterdam, and Flower Power Dispensers on W. 68th St, just west of CPW.
I made a typo – the latter is on W 66th, not W. 68th.
Like bail reform and defunding police, these laws sound great until they are actually put into action.
I don’t know the name but the smoke shop at 2470 Broadway has been shut down although I have seen people in there.
How about other unlicensed businesses? Great precedent in our city. Why should anyone follow the law? Storefront businesses where everyone knows they are operating illegally and it takes this long to shut them down? It kind of feels to me like it was theater or a very clever marketing campaign by the marijuana lobby. Activism since they weren’t happy with how slow Albany was moving. Businesses breaking laws in plain sight and nobody doing anything about it. How about gambling halls, brothels, speakeasies, dance halls, music venues, gun shops? Why do we have undocumented migrants to be selling candy and fruit on the street, subway, highway or park, give them a storefront? All the fake branded bags? Don’t take up sidewalk space, give them a store. How about we turn these stores into housing? Who cares about licenses or laws?
High Convenience on Bway between 108/109 was raided twice week before last; the marshals put up the big signs, which the store then ripped down. They reopened again immediately. Anyone know how/why this happened?
Nice to finally have 2 legal dispensaries. Just a Little Higher on West 72 and Flower Power West 66. Both of these businesses have very knowledgeable staff. Like their products for my arthritis
What I can’t understand is why the landlords don’t check licenses like they would for a liquor store, or a pharmacy, or a food shop, or anything else. I also cannot understand why the stores invest so much in display cases, and neon lighting, and product, and everything. The shop near me on Broadway in Lincoln Square, now shuttered, really was expensive looking and classy. I never would have guessed it was unlicensed.
Wow gee landlords being absent? Who’dathunk it?
This is as stupid as when I visited a “weed cafe” in Amsterdam, where the cashier said it’s legal to buy it and smoke it inside, but not legal to transport it to a shop to sell.
Why legalize something just to recriminalize it into oblivion? Especially since the only people seemingly being granted a “license” to sell it are corporations/hedge funds, celebrities, and “certain” people upstate New York.
I pass by a dozen stores each day, yet still don’t smoke weed. But its just as easy to obtain now as it was when it was “illegal”.
Hochul/Adams make little sense with this stuff…
I wonder if Gale Brewer will start supporting meaningful legislation in the city, rather than focusing on a few illicit cannabis shops every dozen blocks or so.
A few places to start might be supporting Chi Ossé’s FARE Act, to put the onus of broker fees on the party that hires the broker (i.e. the landlord), and rallying against the destruction of the MTA vis a vis the elimination of congestion pricing.
FWIW the FARE Act is one council member short of a supermajority in the NYC Council. Gale Brewer’s silence is deafening…
I love how illegal businesses are never just “closed.” They’re always “shuttered” and “padlocked.”
Info request..So if they have a license they wont have a problem?…So what’s the problem?
Now close the liquor stores. Oh wait, the old geezers celebrating the weed store closings love to drink so those are OK.
Fact is all we are celebrating is the return of a bunch of scary perma-vacant storefronts (queue the conspiracy theories about non-existent tax breaks and bank fraud schemes for how to fix this…)
I was against the weed stores when they arrived out of general aesthetics but the fact is they are 100x better than vacant empty stores attracting decay and that’s what we get back. Big victory.
You are missing the point, if a liquor store was selling booze without a license, they should be shut down. Pot, like liquor, is a narcotic, thus it needs to be regulated and sold from a licensed seller who does so responsibly, or lose their license. You can’t go to a liquor store and open the bottle in the store and pour yourself a drink, that is because the store will not let you for fear of losing their license. Similarly, a liquor store will not sell to a minor for fear of losing its license (and livelihood). The same needs to be for stores selling weed. They need to operate in fear for losing their license because they are selling a regulated product. It is that simple.
We have time for this but none to report illegal migrants or the criminals that destroy our city…. I think weed is the last thing we need to police right now…. Bye Gail