Councilmember Gale Brewer made her personal battle to close down illegal smoke and marijuana stores on the Upper West Side. According to the City Legislation, 2013 Sensible Tobacco Enforcement Law, to be precise, businesses need specific licenses to sell any sort of tobacco product. Especially when it comes to marijuana.
According to The Daily News, Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office conducted a survey going block by block and checked how many delis, smoke shops and grocery stores from West 54th Street to West 108th Street are selling marijuana. They found that in at least 53 of the 89 where they inquired were hawking weed without license. 33 of them were also illegally selling tobacco, e-cigarettes, or banned vapes.
This represents an increase of 104% over November and December 2022, when they conducted the first survey. At that time there were 26 unlicensed pot stores on the Upper West Side–three of them closed down meanwhile because of a non-prosecution agreement with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Today the numbers are significantly higher. According to city officials, there are about 1,500 illicit marijuana retailers across the five boroughs.
“We don’t understand why they are not closed, why they are not getting padlocked”, Ms. Brewer told The Daily News. There are actually only about two dozen stores that have permits to lawfully sell weed, according to State records. “The ones that are licensed are being hurt by these shops,” Ms. Brewer commented. One of them is the Zaza Waza Smoke Shop at 550 Columbus Avenue that, thanks to Ms. Brewer’s complaints and appeals to the 2013 Sensible Tobacco Enforcement Law, closed down last week when the owner failed to pay more than $225,000 in penalties.
This law allows the NY Department of Consumer and Worker Protections to fine a shop on its third offence of selling tobacco illegally, sometimes forcing it to close down. Despite the clear violations, there is little that can be done by the City Council to the unlicensed places selling marijuana since the State legalized the use of recreational marijuana.
