Unlicensed Dispensary Landlords Face New Penalties Under … – Green Market Report

The bill passed the City Council by a vote of 48-0 on Thursday, with one abstention.

The council’s effort echoes a similar landlord-focused enforcement push announced earlier this year by Mayor Eric Adams and Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg. Bragg’s office sent letters to hundreds of shops suspected of illegal cannabis sales, saying prosecutors could force their landlords to evict them, while the city filed lawsuits against a handful of East Village smoke shops that implicated each shop’s landlord as a defendant.

The city has continued filing similar suits since then, court records show, including at least four complaints within the last month targeting smoke shops and their landlords in the East Village and Hell’s Kitchen. A spokesperson for Bragg said Thursday that the office has “ongoing investigations” into a number of stores, and is contacting landlords to educate them about the unlicensed cannabis market and ways to evict illegal tenants.

The council bill also comes weeks after state lawmakers took their own step toward cracking down on illicit weed shops. A provision in the state budget will allow the state’s Office of Cannabis Management to levy heftier fines to illegal sellers—up to $20,000 per day—and seize paraphernalia from unlicensed shops.

Hochul on Thursday announced the first results from those new