Mayor walks back timeline to shutter all of city’s illegal pot shops

Mayor Eric Adams walked back previous comments saying he could shut all illegal pot shops in 30 days once given the authority. Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.

By Ryan Schwach

Though Mayor Eric Adams has said for months that if given the power, he could close all the city’s illegal smoke shops in 30 days, now that he’s been given that power, the mayor says he may need a little more time.

At his weekly “off-topic” press conference on Tuesday, Adams walked back previous statements in which he said that he could close all the illegal smoke shops in the city once given the authority to by the state in a month. This week, he said a “substantial dent” could be made in that same timeline.

“Now we have the tools, we have the authority and we're going to start kicking into place,” Adams said. “On the 31st day, don't be standing in front of City Hall and say ‘Hey, I saw a shop,’ because they're going to continue to open and we will continue to close it.”

Included in the recently passed state budget was a provision that will allow for the city to take enforcement of the illicit shops into its own hands – enforcement was previously primarily handled by the state. The budget also increased the penalty for shop owners who break back into their shop and open for business directly after having their doors padlocked.

Regardless of how long it will take to close shops, Adams said the process has already started.

“There's steps we have to do here also – I was just educated on all the steps we have to do,” he said. “While this has taken place, the team has already identified [the illegal shops’] locations. We already have our operations.”

The mayor added that he hoped what the city does could be a “model for the rest of the country.”

However, Adams also said that shops will be able to find “loopholes” and will continue to open even after stores are officially closed by city officials and law enforcement.

“We got it, but trust me when I tell you there will be those that even when we close them, they're going to try to find a loophole to open them again,” he said.

The 30-day statement originated from a release from Queens Assemblymember and Adams ally Jenifer Rajkumar shen she announced her SMOKEOUT Act, a similar bill to the one passed in the budget.

“​​Mayor Adams says when granted the enforcement power from Albany, he could clear up the smoke shops problem in 30 days,” her release said.

Adams and Rajkumar both repeated that statement up until Tuesday.

When the measure was passed, City Hall confirmed to the Eagle that the NYPD will be deputized to take on enforcement, a process that will begin once the budget is wrapped up.

But on Tuesday, Adams said he was reluctant to get the police more involved.

“Ideally we would love to have the police department not have to be deputized, but they have to be deputized,” he said.

Previously, only state agencies, including the Office of Cannabis Management, had the ability to actually police stores, although they did so with the assistance of city agencies like the Sheriff's Department.

The amendment will allow the city to inspect, issue violations, seize cannabis and padlock stores.

Governor Kathy Hochul’s office said that New York City will be able to conduct administrative hearings within five days of padlocking a store and will be provided with a decision within four days after the hearing.

“The padlock goes on immediately,” Hochul said.

Included in the state’s budget is a bill that will grant New York City and other municipalities the ability to enforce illegal cannabis sales.  Photo by Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul

For more than a year, the proliferation of illegal shops has been a hot button issue across the city, from elected officials down to community boards, who have tried to push back on them opening on local streets.

When announcing the budget measures, Hochul called those who open the illegal shops “rampant bad actors”

“People who run these illicit shops engage in fraudulent advertising about what's in their products, because they don't really care about your health,” she said. “They'll source their product from anywhere because they don't care about New York farmers, they'll sell cannabis gummy rings, ice cream cones, chocolate bars, because they don't care about your kids, and they will evade taxes because they don't care about the communities where they operate.”

Both Hochul and Adams have pushed back on the premise that expanding enforcement would bring back the overzealous and often racist cannabis policing measures practiced before legalization.

“They're misguided [if] they think that somehow this is going to return us to the bad old days of mass incarceration of people of color,” Hochul said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”