Smoking them out

Mayor Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced yesterday that the NYPD filed formal complaints against four unlicensed retail marijuana sellers, seeking to shut them down, and Bragg sent letters to hundreds of others warning of possible eviction proceedings. The four other DAs should follow suit.

While earlier seizures of cannabis could be chalked up to the cost of doing business under the state Marijuana Regulation Taxation Act, these actions ensure not only that the estimated 1,400 existing unlicensed businesses face an actual threat of real consequences, but that those considering joining the free-for-all need to think twice.

It’s particularly important that Bragg sent letters not just to a handful of particularly egregious violators but to more than 400 known Manhattan smoke shops illegally selling cannabis, eliminating plausible deniability and potential future protestations that the owners and landlords just didn’t know or weren’t told. Drawing a bright line is a far better approach than playing enforcement whack-a-mole with uncertain and often underwhelming consequences.

Here, the targets are all violators and the consequences dire and spelled out in black-and-white: possible eviction proceedings against illegally operating shops, which functionally may act as threats of closure. This is not just clearer and more forceful, it puts the onus also on landlords, a separate group that can be empowered to take action in the face of unregulated sales. The cops and DA can’t be everywhere at once, but every shop has a landlord who wants to avoid the headache of law enforcement attention and a forced eviction.

If New York wants to take it a step further, it can codify something similar to Los Angeles’ provision of direct landlord liability, where landlords can be fined tens of thousands of dollars per day and receive an eventual criminal referral for allowing unlicensed cannabis operators in their buildings. That said, the more heavy-handed tools should be reserved for the most flagrant lawbreakers; not every little shop should have the book thrown at them, but they all must be in compliance with the law.