ALL SMOKE AND ERRORS
Key weapon vs. unlicensed weed shops isn’t used
New York City hasn’t fined a single landlord for renting out space to unlicensed weed shops under a law that took effect nearly eight months ago with a delay in the program’s rollout and shortcomings in the measure itself as the main problems, according to data obtained by the Daily News and city officials.
The lack of enforcement deals a blow to a key measure that sought to stem the proliferation of unlicensed weed stores across the city.
Under the law, if city inspectors discover illegal pot sales at a smoke shop during an inspection, the Sheriff’s Office must send a warning letter to the landlord instructing them to either start evicting the tenant or make the tenant stop pushing weed. If the landlord does not remedy the problem in response to the warning, the city can levy a $5,000 fine, but only if the city detects during a subsequent reinspection of the shop that illicit weed sales are continuing. Neither the new law — which took effect July 23, 2023 — nor any protocols from local authorities require mandatory re-inspections of alleged delinquent shops.
A spokeswoman for Mayor Adams, who confirmed that no smoke shop landlord fines have been issued to date, said the city’s protocol is that the Sheriff’s Office and other regulatory agencies can only inspect a suspected illegal weed shop in response to community complaints. That means that even if a landlord has received a warning letter flagging illegal cannabis activity at a property, the city is not required to return for a reinspection — the action required to issue a fine — unless a fresh community complaint is lodged against the shop in question.
Adding to the lack of tickets is the slow rollout of warning letters. The Adams spokeswoman said the city did not send out any warning letters until November, delaying any enforcement activity that could have taken place. She wouldn’t explain why letters didn’t go out sooner.
Against that backdrop, the reinspection rate is dragging.
After the implementation delay, the mayor’s office said the city issued 252 warning letters to smoke shop landlords in November and December 2023. Just 43 of those shops have subsequently been re-inspected, and none of the follow-ups warranted landlord fines, according to City Hall.
To date, nearly 500 warning letters have been sent out to landlords, City Hall said. The mayor’s team wouldn’t say how many of those have been re-inspected.
City Hall did say only about 90 of the roughly 500 landlords have responded to the warning letters by affirming they are either in the process of evicting the tenant hawking illegal weed or hashing out a legal agreement for the tenant to stop the illicit activity.
An Adams spokeswoman said some of the remaining 410 or so landlords may have rectified the issues at their properties without responding to the letters. But she wouldn’t break down how many landlords fall into that category or say how many have taken no action in response to the letters, which should subject them to fines under the law.
While there’s been no landlord fines, the internal data obtained by The News shows the Sheriff’s Office has issued a flurry of fines against operators of weed shops.
The data reveals the Sheriff’s Office in 2023 slapped weed shop operators with 2,383 civil fines and 371 criminal summonses and conducted 211 arrests over illicit sales. That’s out of a total of 1,475 illicit weed dispensary inspections conducted by the office in the same span, according to the data.
The data, shared with The News by a source, was first provided to the City Council this month by the mayor’s office. That’s in spite of the fact that the mayor’s office is required by law to provide the Council with quarterly updates on unlicensed weed enforcement.
Queens Councilwoman Lynn Schulman, who penned the law that authorized landlord fines, said she doesn’t know why the city didn’t start sending out warning letters sooner, but that she’s pleased the measure has started being enforced. She also voiced surprise no penalties have been imposed on landlords, given how many summonses were issued against illicit weed dispensary operators last year.
‘”There should be fines,” she said.
Schulman stressed, though, that to truly to tackle the city’s proliferation of unlicensed weed sales, the state must give the city power to unilaterally shutter shops pushing bud without licenses — a sentiment shared by the mayor.
“We really need the state to give the city the ability to close these places directly,” she said.
Manhattan Councilwoman Gale Brewer, a Democrat who co-sponsored Schulman’s bill, said “it would have been better” if Adams’ administration started sending out letters to landlords earlier.
But she agreed state action is required. “We need to padlock these stores, and to do that we need the state,” she said.
Under current rules, the city can only shut down a weed shop permanently if it gets a directive authorizing it do so from the state Office of Cannabis Management. The mayor and a chorus of lawmakers have called on Gov. Hochul to bake a provision into the state budget that would authorize the city to be able to take such enforcement action on its own.
Hochul hasn’t committed to such a proposal yet, but is backing a measure that would allow city authorities to execute state orders to shutter illicit weed stores..