It hasn’t worked out the way the lawmakers wanted ….
With causal marijuana legal?
The local corner store’s, bodega’s , started selling weed and NOT kicking back licensing fee’s to the state….
The cops ain’t involved anymore…
And state efforts to confiscate illegally sold weed, just means the store owner will go back out a get more and keep selling in the store…
Oops…..
Soon after New York legalized marijuana in 2021 — and well before any legally licensed cannabis dispensaries opened — a new kind of shop began popping up around town, colonizing many storefronts left empty by the pandemic. In 2022, Curbed dubbed these stores “weed bodegas,” describing the fly-by-night businesses as “part smoke shop, part convenience store, part dispensary, all packaged in the aesthetic of a Monster Energy drink.”
Beyond their illegality, garishness, and questionable product, weed bodegas have undermined cannabis entrepreneurs who follow the rules, many of whom navigated tangles of red tape and extended delays to open legal dispensaries — or are still doing so. The bureaucratic chaos has put a blemish on New York’s pioneering attempt at prioritizing racial and gender diversity, as well as those previously convicted of marijuana-related offenses, in its licensing program. Almost since the weed bodegas’ inception, the city and the New York Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), which regulates marijuana sales, have been talking about cracking down on them — yet they’re as thick on the ground as ever. Lawmakers are now speaking with more urgency: Governor Kathy Hochul recently called the state’s cannabis rollout a “disaster” and has proposed legislation that would grant OCM more power to shut down illegal businesses. I spoke with Chris Alexander, executive director of the agency, about the difficulty of closing illegal shops, why he’s glad police aren’t more involved in enforcement, and what’s around the corner for legal weed in New York….
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More on the Q&A about this which seems to be a over complication….
Selling weed with out kicking money to the state is a LOT cheaper ….
PERIOD…