NEW YORK — New York’s efforts to curb the explosion of unlicensed weed shops have been largely ineffective due to a tangle of limited laws, agencies with overlapping responsibility and spotty enforcement, a Daily News investigation has found.
Despite high-profile actions, like Thursday’s 4/20 raid of a Midtown Weed World shop, the state and city have struggled to stem the proliferation of gray market shops that took root in the long period between the legalization of recreational marijuana in New York and the opening of the first cannabis dispensary in December 2022.
That’s not to say they haven’t tried. A city task force set up by Mayor Eric Adams in November to address the issue has issued about 150 criminal court summonses, 330 notices of violations from the Sheriff’s Office and more than $4 million in fines. District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office has put 400 landlords on notice that they could be evicted.
