(WBEN) - New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday the Office of Cannabis Management and the Department of Taxation and Finance have seized over 1,000 pounds of cannabis products from dozens of illegal cannabis businesses operating without license in New York State since enacting new laws allowing the organizations' enforcement power.
"These unlicensed businesses violate our laws, put public health at risk, and undermine the legal cannabis market," said Hochul. "And with the powerful new tools in our toolbelt we're sending a clear and strong message: if you sell illegal cannabis in New York, you will be caught and you will be stopped."
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Since June 7, the New York State Office of Cannabis Management and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance have jointly conducted inspections at 33 storefront businesses in New York City, Ithaca, and Binghamton not licensed to sell cannabis. The two agencies have issued Notices of Violation to 31 of these businesses. They must attend a hearing where their fines will be assessed.
Cannabis regulators can assess fines on the businesses ranging from $10,000 a day, up to $20,000 a day if they continue to sell after a violation notice.
Gov. Hochul also issued a warning to the landlords who have turned their eye to the actions of the tenants selling unregulated product.
"We've got a new process to shut down illegal operators and to keep them shut until the fines are paid. If it continues, the Office of Cannabis management will work with the State Attorney General's Office and issue restraining orders and issues of closure.
There's different layers here now that were not in place when this industry first was born. These procedures can not just be brought against the store owner, but the property itself, the building owner. That's a warning to all the landlords out there, saying you really want to risk this, not just your reputation, but this is going to hit you monetarily as well."
Aaron Van Camp, a conditional adult-use recreational dispensary (CAURD) license holder who plans on opening a store in Buffalo the near future, weighs in on the crackdown.
"As a business person, I recognize that it will help me. At the same time, as someone who spent a lot of time in jail for marijuana, I'm never pleased to see anything bad or harmful result from people who just want to enjoy pot. I hope everybody gets compliant. I would wish that they would. But at the same time, I'm not going to ever cheer for anyone being busted or anything bad happening."
Van Camp believes that some sticker shops were going to run themselves out of business, because of the unregulated product they are selling, which is not always what is advertised. Van Camp wishes that some of the honest, unlicensed sellers, who actually care about the business and sell what they grow or advertise, would eventually comply.
"The sticker stores, I think, they're going to run each other out of business just with garbage products, bad sprayed CBD with THC distillate and weird, horrible things, some of them are going to thrive and I do respect those people, because they are people that I have known for a long time. I don't want to see them go away, I wish they would be able to get licenses."
To qualify for the first round of CAURD licenses, you or someone in your family had to, at one point, be incarcerated for selling marijuana. Van Camp acknowledges that some growers and sellers were not able to apply.