“Operation Padlock To Protect” Hits Hell’s Kitchen’s 50+ Unlicensed Smoke Stores

As legal dispensaries finally make their way to Hell’s Kitchen , new emergency regulations allowing the city to permanently padlock unregulated pot shops are starting to curb the neighborhood’s unlicensed cannabis stores.

Dubbed “ Operation Padlock to Protect ” by Mayor Eric Adams, a new set of emergency rules and regulations authorize the sheriff’s office, NYPD and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to inspect any business where cannabis products are sold without a license, and permanently seal stores found in violation to prevent them from re-launching.

Mayor Eric Adams expressed a renewed commitment to making a more noticeable dent in the swath of unregulated cannabis shops, adding: “Our message is clear, we want to close them down,” he said in a press conference addressing the move. “And if you’re out there, we have a lock with your name on it.” District 3 City Council Member Erik Bottcher posted notice of the document , adding that he was in touch with the sheriff’s office and hoped closures in the area would begin by May 15.

Local officials hoped that the regulations would make a difference in shutting down the city’s more than 2,800 unlicensed cannabis shops — over 50 in Hell’s Kitchen alone. W42ST’s first empty storefront survey in spring 2023 showed 41 unlicensed smoke shops in the neighborhood, with the number creeping to 50 by our fall storefront survey and to 53 at last count.

Council Member Gale Brewer, recently profiled for her one-woman battle against an unlicensed Upper West Side smoke shop called Zaza Waza , told W42ST that the new regulations were “good news — because we had nothing before,” she said, adding that she was glad to see the sheriff’s office prioritizing shops near schools and youth centers, noting the prevalence of unlicensed shops selling cannabis products in child-friendly packaging.

The mayor — who recently touted that the city had already sealed 75 unlicensed shops — initially promised that the process would take down the city’s swath of unlicensed shops within a month, which some have found an ambitious timeline. After experiencing the difficulty of monitoring unlicensed shops first-hand, Brewer pointed out that there would be many challenges in maintaining the policy, with shop owners and attorneys finding ways to delay and prevent permanent closure. “The mayor says he can do this in 30 days, and I’m not sure if that’s possible,” she said.

Hell’s Kitchen has seen a revolving door of unlicensed smoke shops in the past few years, with gray market businesses opening — and reopening — as quickly as they are shut down. While there has been an uptick in new unlicensed shops appearing on 9th Avenue, there have also been several prominent closures. Recently, smoke shops High Life Smoke Dispensary and Green Light District that sandwich W42nd Street’s popular Zillions Pizza shuttered, as did a number of unlicensed shops in the W30s and Exotics Town Convenience on W55th Street. However, as of publication, Green Light District is once again open for business.

There are also legal dispensaries making a bid for the West Side — including a licensed shop at 862 9th Avenue (previously Bar Veloce), 797 8th Avenue (currently empty) and 500 W43rd Street (currently an unlicensed shop called Pink Treezzz). The Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has a map of active and pending adult-use retail dispensaries that lists licensees who have obtained proximity protection for their proposed or open adult-use retail and medical dispensaries.

Unlicensed shops that have emerged and reemerged amid previous closure attempts have brought the state’s distribution policy into question, with farmers , consumers and legal distributors decrying the licensing process as too restrictive, resulting in a glut of unsold legal product and the opportunity for unregulated stores to dominate the market. Last Friday, OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander announced he will step down in September, following the results of a task-force-led report outlining the failures of the state’s licensing rollout, which Governor Kathy Hochul called “a disaster.”

Led by Jeanette Moy of the Office of General Services, the report noted a significant backlog in the license approval process, with more than 5,600 applications dating back to August 2022 were still awaiting review by an “understaffed” licensing team navigating a “scattered” process.

Moy told the New York Times that 90 percent of applications filed required corrections, which significantly slowed the review process.“We have to fix the process. We have to clear the backlog,” Moy said. “We need to get these legal cannabis stores up and going.”

According to the report, the OCM had also spent millions of dollars and significant time attempting to create its own unique software system rather than adapting already-proven programs used by other state agencies. It recommended that the OCM double its licensing staff and create a more formal denial system to streamline the process. The OCM has also approved a policy requiring regulators to review the 1,200 license applicants who have already secured commercial space as a means of opening more legal dispensaries quickly. The move has faced a mixed reception.

Some local officials pushed back against the findings of the report, blaming Governor Hochul’s office for the hold up in approvals. “I know that the executive director was consistently asking for more staff and more help, and they were completely ignored,” State Senator Liz Krueger, a co-author of New York’s cannabis law, told the Times. “So I feel like the governor should have done this 18 months ago. And I wish that they had listened to the agency.”

Regardless of changes to the state’s licensing process, the jury is out as to whether the neighborhood — and the city’s — unlicensed shops would truly, permanently, disappear in the next month. As Brewer recalled the experience of padlocking Zaza Waza’s doors — only to find the lock clipped the next day — she said: “They better have a big padlock.”

The post “Operation Padlock To Protect” Hits Hell’s Kitchen’s 50+ Unlicensed Smoke Stores appeared first on W42ST .