Adams turns to civil law to eliminate illegal weed market
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Mayor Eric Adams announced on Tuesday that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will now be using civil measures to go after unlicensed cannabis dealers. Photo by Caroline Willis / Mayoral Photo Office
By Ryan Schwach
In his latest attempt to combat unlicensed weed sellers shopping their wares in the now-legal marijuana market, Mayor Eric Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said on Tuesday that they’re turning to the civil law book.
Previously, government and law enforcement have relied on criminal investigation methods to go after illegal cannabis sellers, but now, Adams and Bragg are taking a new approach by going after the leases the businesses use to operate.
“Marijuana legalization in New York came with rules, and these rules must be respected,” Bragg said in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Using New York State law for real property actions and proceedings, section 715, which relates to “grounds and procedure where use or occupancy is illegal,” the DA sent letters to the owners of over 400 properties where unlicensed cannabis is being sold and called for them to begin eviction proceedings. If no action is taken, the DA’s office said they would do it themselves.
“If owners and landlords fail to initiate timely eviction proceedings against these commercial tenets that are in violation of the law, or fail to prosecute those proceedings diligently, my office is prepared to take over and pursue eviction proceedings,” Bragg said.
Baked into the legalization of adult-use cannabis, which was passed by the state in March 2021, were measures to bring equity and fairness to an industry that has long targeted, prosecuted and incarcerated people of color.
But in the days and weeks since the opening of New York’s first-ever legal weed business, Adams has contended that illegal sellers have gotten in the way of the law’s equity measures.
“For decades, Black and brown communities bore the brunt of marijuana enforcement,” said Bragg. “It unfairly criminalized young people, drove mass incarceration, and failed to make our communities safe.”
To help with that goal, lawmakers included in the legalization initiatives to expunge past marijuana charges. The law also gives business-operating priority to individuals who had been arrested for selling cannabis in the past.
“It’s wrong to have this process undermined,” Adams said. “You can’t just open a shop and sell.”
Bragg agreed and said that illegal sellers are “robbing the very communities that suffered from marijuana criminalization for decades,” by flaunting the tax revenue that is supposed to go back into those communities.
“Legalizing cannabis was a major step forward, but we are not going to sit back and watch that go up in smoke,” said Adams.
The city will now use civil law enforcement over criminal law enforcement because some illegal sellers have treated the fines and loss of profit from product seizures as the “cost of doing business,” Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said.
“Taking their leases is at a whole other level,” he added.
But some New Yorkers who have been busted for illegal sales say they’ve not sold marijuana in a deliberate attempt to exploit the law, but because they’ve found it difficult to legally enter the industry.
Omar Herrera, who was recently arrested and charged for marijuana sales in Queens, argues that the city isn’t doing enough to open the door for legal sellers.
“The transition from legacy market to legal market is hard and most likely won’t get any easier,” Herrera told the Eagle on Tuesday. “The [Office of Cannabis Management] and the state don’t really have a plan going forward. It's like they are making it up as they go along.”
Herrera was arrested by the sheriff's department and charged by Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz in December, and is due next in court late this month.
“I think anyone in the cannabis industry that has been doing it for years should be able to get the license to sell especially in the industry that they know hands on – selling is just one lane in the cannabis industry – growing, processing, packaging, testing, branding, consumption lounge, so many more areas that also need attention also,” he said. “New York was not ready for the green rush.”
The Office of Cannabis Management have already begun to hand out licenses, including a number in Queens, but admitted they need to continue doing so.
“We need to keep going,” said OCM Executive Director, Christopher Alexander. “We have to roll out more dispensaries.”
However, Alexander noted that the industry requires heavy regulation.
“We have been rolling out, but in a way the law dictates,” he said.
It is currently unknown if Queens officials, like District Attorney Malinda Katz, will seek a similar method of enforcement that the mayor announced on Tuesday.
Her office told the Eagle that the DA works with the New York City Sheriff’s Department, but declined to comment on if the Manhattan DA’s new path will affect their method of enforcement.
