City Council takes on illegal smoke shops
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City Councilmember Lynn Schulman was joined by other officials Monday as she pushes a new law to combat illegal smoke shops. Photo via New York City Council/Twitter
By Ryan Schwach
A new city law in response to the scourge of illegal smoke shops went into effect this summer, and on Monday, the Queens councilmember who sponsored it and other officials discussed how the new law will work.
Introduction 1001-B, which went into effect on July 23, prohibits owners of commercial spaces from knowingly leasing to unlicensed sellers of marijuana or tobacco products, and imposes fines on landlords for violations. The law is another step in New York City’s ongoing crackdown of illegal cannabis smoke shops that have popped up all over the five boroughs in the last year.
Queens Councilmember Lynn Schulman, who sponsored the bill, called it a “game changer in shutting down illegal cannabis shops that are proliferating in New York City and threatening our communities.”
Schulman’s bill, rather than targeting the sellers and shops themselves, targets the landlords that rent space to them.
“[This] will send a message to landlords that will make them either begin eviction proceedings against current tenants or provide a chilling effect to keep them from renting to them at all,” she said. “Our goal is to shut down these unlicensed cannabis and smoke shops.”
The “steep” fines, Schulman says, start with a $5,000 civil penalty on the first violation, and then $10,000 for every subsequent violation.
The law takes a “two-strike” approach, which means fines can potentially kick in after a second city inspection finds illegal cannabis or tobacco products.
“There is an inspection of the shop and if it's found that there's an illegal business operating there, notices are sent to the landlord saying that you are renting to an entity that's conducting illegal business, then it's two strikes and then when they go back to inspect again, they'll get another notification and at that point, they'll start getting fined,” Schulman said.
The bill passed unanimously among City Councilmembers who were present for the vote, and was co-sponsored by several of Schulman’s fellow Queens councilmembers, including Selvena Brooks-Powers, Julie Won, Joann Ariola, Linda Lee, Vickie Paladino, Jim Gennaro and Sandra Ung.
Officials on Monday echoed the calls from Mayor Eric Adams and others who have said the illegal smoke shops pose a health risk to New Yorkers.
“They have public health and public safety hazards, these illegal shops sell to kids, the cannabis they sell has been found to be adulterated,” said Schulman.
Local civic leaders have also taken on illegal shops, saying they hurt the communities around them.
“Illegal smoke and cannabis shops have been an ongoing challenge in our communities,” said Heather Beers-Dimitriadis, Chair of Queens Community Board 6. “We appreciate this creative approach from Council Member Lynn Schulman and Council Member Carlina Rivera. It is important to protect our community from businesses selling adulterated cannabis, to protect our city from the theft of tax dollars, and to protect future regulated cannabis shops that continue to open throughout our borough.”
Schulman and her colleagues also argue that the proliferation of illegal shops hinder the growth of the legal market.
“They prevent licensed sellers like this one from opening legitimate businesses, and they robbed the city of much needed tax revenue to pay for essential programs and services,” she said outside the Union Square Travel Agency, a legal cannabis dispensary in Manhattan.
According to the council, there are an estimated 8,000 illegal smoke shops in the city, 2,000 of which sell illegal cannabis products.
There are currently 23 legal shops in the entire state, according to the Office of Cannabis Management.
“We have an obligation to protect a healthy legal cannabis market and ensure that the industry meets its equity goals,” said Manhattan Councilmember Carlina Rivera on Monday. “We're all working together to ensure that we are supporting and protecting the legal market and that's why this legislation by Councilmember Schulman is so important.”
“Illegal shops are incredibly problematic,” she added. “So we're working to ensure we're doing this the right way.”
Keith Delessio, who is trying to open a legal dispensary in Astoria told the Eagle in April that the crackdown on illegal shops is key to legal ones – like his – succeeding.
“It's paramount – they have to be shut down in order for us to succeed,” he said in April. “I know the OCM is going to do their best to get them shut down but I find it very alarming that these places are still open and my hope is really that they stopped because there's got to be at least 10 of them within a mile radius of where my store is. I know there's at least four or five on Steinway Street.”
“If they're not shut down, we will not succeed,” he added.
However, the already slow rollout of legal shops in New York State was put on pause this week, after a judge in Kingston, New York issued a temporary restraining order stopping any new shops from opening and any new licenses from being handed out.
The judge, Ulster County Supreme Court Judge Kevin Bryant, issued the order after four service-disabled veterans sued OCM after they were deemed not eligible for a license, Gothamist reported.
Bryant has delayed his ruling on the case, in hopes the two parties can work it out themselves.
In the meantime, NYPD Assistant Chief Jim McCarthy says the department is taking the enforcement of illegal cannabis shops “very seriously.”
The Office of Cannabis Management did not respond to a request for comment, and the New York City Sheriff’s Department, who manage the enforcement of illegal shops, did not respond before press time.
