By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams, City Sheriff Anthony Miranda, City Police Commissioner Edward Caban, and City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga on Monday destroyed more than four tons, or 576 bags, of seized, illegal cannabis products as inspectors of the City Sherriff’s Joint Compliance Task Force has shut down and sealed more than 1,000 illegal cannabis and smoke shops since the start of the City’s successful “Operation Padlock to Protect” nearly four months ago.
Adams also announced that, as of Sunday, the task force has conducted inspections of 100 percent of known shops identified as selling cannabis illegally and that was part of “Operation Padlock to Protect’s” initial list of illegal shops.
As a result of the operation’s rapid success, the city has seized more than $63 million in illegal product, which has been taking up an outsized amount of space across NYPD’s network of evidence warehouses. Adams, a retired NYPD captain, joined members of the joint task force on Monday — made up of the Sheriff’s Office, the NYPD, and DCWP — to participate in NYPD’s standard evidence destruction process of incinerating illegal substances and products in an environmentally-responsible way. Byproduct from the incineration of seized evidence is then used as an energy source for the surrounding community.
Following Adams’ successful advocacy in Albany for municipalities to be given the regulatory authority by the state to finally shut down illegal cannabis and smoke shops plaguing city streets, law enforcement officials moved quickly to execute its legal authority, and accelerated its steady enforcement. With the newly granted local authority, the Adams administration has executed a five-borough strategy to finally end this public health and safety issue.
“Operation Padlock to Protect” systematically conducts joint operations — which include inspections and follow-up inspections — in neighborhoods across the five boroughs. When illegal stores are ordered to be sealed, officers from local NYPD precincts monitor those locations to ensure compliance and alert the Sheriff’s Office when violations of the seal order occur.
“Illegal cannabis shops are blights on our communities and are antithetical to the work of building a legal, regulated cannabis economy that centers social justice and fairness. Continuing to weed out these shops and their potentially harmful products could not be more critical to that effort,” said Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. “There must be no place for illegal cannabis operators in The World’s Borough or anywhere else in our city.”
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz added, “The sale of illegal, unregulated cannabis not only threatens public safety, but it also undermines legitimate businesses before they even have a chance to open. My office has been steadfast in our efforts to stop these sales by initiating eviction proceedings against illegal vendors and by shutting down mobile dispensaries that are often parked near schools, with product clearly marketed toward our children. I thank Mayor Adams, the NYPD, and the New York City Sheriff for their leadership in seizing untested, unregulated cannabis and shutting down illegal vendors to protect public health and safety.”