Queens pols call for closure of smoke shop as new law takes effect
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Queens elected officials rallied against a Jackson Heights smoke shop on Wednesday as the city gains more enforcement powers.Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
As the city gets the ability to shutter illegal cannabis shops across the five boroughs, Western Queens electeds targeted a single one in Jackson Heights this week.
On Wednesday, officials and parents spoke in front of Hazeland, an illegal smoke shop on 82nd Street in Jackson Heights, which is perched directly across from a Pre-K to 12 school.
Officials spoke out against the shop, which like many others targeted by community members across the city, is unregulated and is allegedly illegally markets toward kids, while flaunting state weed regulations.
“It is unacceptable to our community to have these unlicensed weed shops spreading and spreading throughout our neighborhood, throughout our city, and we have had enough of it,” said City Councilmember Shekar Krishnan. “They are a public health hazard, and they are actually undermining the licensing scheme that the state government has already set up. They are undermining licensed businesses. They are undermining the workers in those businesses, and they are doing so at the expense of our community.”
The officials say that enforcement against Hazeland thus far has mirrored that of the enforcement taken unsuccessfully by the Sheriff’s Department in the past. Though sheriff’s deputies have busted the story and locked its doors, its owners have come back the next day and opened up for business as if nothing had happened.
But now, through the recently passed state budget, the city is expected to gain the power to padlock doors for good, and issue criminal consequences should an owner or employee of an illegal shop attempt to get back inside.
“We have gotten a commitment that [the sheriff] is coming back, and we need them to come back,” said Assemblymember Catalina Cruz. “We need them to shut this shop and any other shop in the neighborhood permanently.”
Stacey Gauthier, the principal of the Renaissance Charter School located diagonally across the street from Hazeland, said she is worried for the safety of her students when stores like Hazeland open up.
“What's it going to take? Is it going to take for a child to get sick, a child to die? Because we do not know what they are ingesting,” she said. “These shops do not follow the rules. I'm not anti-cannabis. I think New York State is trying to go about it the right way to make it legal. But my understanding is that even legal shops should not be so close to the school, and this is an illegal shop.”
“We are extremely, extremely concerned about this,” she added.
Lawmakers said that they were confident that the legal changes passed through the state budget would begin to have an effect in neighborhoods like Jackson Heights.
“On 4/20 we very appropriately passed the budget that included the provision to shut down these illegal shops,” said Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas, a proponent of pot’s legalization in the state in 2021.
“When we passed the Marijuana Regulation Taxation Act a few years ago, this was to ensure that people most impacted by the War on Drugs were at the front of the line, and there was a difficult and robust process to ensure that anyone that wants to open a legal shop went through a number of hoops to ensure that they were going to follow the law,” she added. “And let me tell you, when these guys like Hazeland and so many others throughout the neighborhoods in the district, when they open up their shop, they jump ahead, they break the law.”
The new law will see the city “deputize” the NYPD to join the sheriff and other city and state agencies in shutting down illegal shops.
Mayor Eric Adams had previously said he could shutter all the shops in 30 days if a law of this kind went into effect – he has since amended that statement to say that the city could make a “substantial dent” in that same timeframe.
The mayor also acknowledged that he was worried that stores may still find loopholes to open up in some form again even after they are shut by the city.
“Now we have the tools, we have the authority and we're going to start kicking into place,” Adams said on Tuesday. “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.”
Much of the vocal push back on illegal weed shops, although largely ubiquitous from officials and community members, has more recently come from moderate Democrats and conservatives, rather than progressives like Cruz, González-Rojas and Krishnan, who all rallied together this week.
“The fact of the matter is, our agencies need to be focused on issues like these,” Krishnan said to the Eagle. “The reality is when it comes to illegal weed shops in our neighborhood, unlicensed weed shops are a true public safety and public health hazard. For this mayor who claims to be about improving public safety, this is the issue that the city agencies should be focused on.”
When announcing the new laws, both the mayor and Governor Kathy Hochul tried to reassure New Yorkers that increased cannabis enforcement would not lead to the same Drug War-era tactics that disproportionately affected Black and brown communities.
The officials on Thursday didn’t express any reluctance to give more power to the mayor and NYPD when it comes to policing illegal cannabis sellers.
“I think for this particular purpose, it is the way we have to do it,” said Cruz. “There's going to be coordination between [the Office of Cannabis Management] and local law enforcement, whether it's a sheriff or NYPD, and I think that's the way that it should have always worked.”
“We have done our job,” she added. “Now it's your turn – sheriff and governor, and each of your agencies, to do yours.”
