New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda told a city council oversight committee that he was unwilling to release a list of all of the thousand-plus illicit cannabis shops his deputies have sealed up as part of Operation Padlock to Protect.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the city’s crackdown on illegal pot shops, when he publicly destroyed what he estimated was about $63 million of seized illicit cannabis. During the late August event, Adams touted that more than 1,000 shops had been sealed, but further details of the crackdown have been difficult to obtain.
A spokesperson for Adams said that the city had sealed 1,108 stores, but the only other information they provided was a breakdown of the number of closed shops for each burrough. Brooklyn saw the most closures at 321, followed by 285 in Manhattan, 233 in Queens, 224 in The Bronx and 45 on Staten Island.
Meanwhile, the Office of Cannabis Management provided a list of 345 illicit shops that the agency had shut down throughout the state, with dates, business names and addresses included.
Sheriff Miranda shared some details when he testified Sept. 17 before the New York City Council’s Committee on Oversight and Investigation during a hearing chaired by City Councilor Gale Brewer. He argued that releasing a detailed list of closed store fronts could improperly malign those businesses even if they were found innocent.
Report: 16% of violations dismissed, 3% of fines collected
Ahead of the city council hearing, Brewer’s office produced a 44-page report on Operation Padlock.
The report noted that there had been 1,178 violations cited by the sheriff’s department. Of those, 516 were affirmed by the Office of Administrative and Trial Hearings (OATH), 287 were default judgments where the defendant did not show up to the hearing, and 188 were dismissed. The remaining 187 violations still have their hearings pending.
Miranda said his office had conducted 5,059 inspections since the operation began, involving teams of five to seven deputies.
The report showed that there were still an estimated 2,600 illicit shops operating in New York City. That number was about 2,800 four months ago when the emergency rule went into effect, allowing for the start of Operation Padlock. The report said an average 90 stores per week have been closed since May. At that pace, the city will be sealing stores until July 2025.
Brewer also criticized the sheriff’s office for having collected only about 3% of all of the fines that have been levied by his office since Operation Padlock began. About $10.9 million in fines have been assessed for illegally selling cannabis, according to Brewer, who used data from OATH. Of those assessed fines, $2.8 million came from default judgments. According to OATH, businesses found in default are fined $10,000 per summons. Only $210,000 of all penalties have been collected.
Miranda explained that defendants would have to exhaust their legal options before he could collect any fines.
“Our primary concern is to shut these businesses down and not to generate revenue,” he said. “It is very difficult to collect from often untraceable LLCs that are no longer in business.”
Sheriff’s raids, staffing criticized
The sheriff’s department staffing level is currently close to 60%, but Miranda said he hopes to make up most of that gap with a new class of about 90 deputies in October.
Ingrid Simonovic, president of the New York City Deputy Sheriff’s Association, argued that the sheriff was overworking his staff while doing little to cut down on the business of illicit cannabis in the city.
“The sheriff’s portrayal of shutting down cannabis shops is also misleading,” she said. “Many stores are reopening after they are shut down.”
Simonovic argued that the sheriff’s department was prioritizing enforcement actions against illicit pot shops at the detriment of enforcing protective orders for domestic violence allegations. At the same time, Ingrid argued that the sheriff was failing to properly staff up his department. Specifically, Ingrid claimed the sheriff’s department failed to properly staff the effort to vet applications from prospective deputies through background checks.
“The only way that I could see us having an academy in October is if we don’t do the due diligence,” she said.
Miranda was unable to say how many of the sealed shops have since reopened or relocated. He also noted there was little he could do if a cannabis-selling business moves out of the shop and onto the street corner or into roving vans that operate similarly to food trucks.
“When it comes to street sales, then it falls to the NYPD. It does not fall on the task force,” said Miranda.
At the same time, shopkeepers have started pushing back against the raids and seizures with legal action of their own.
Attorney Lance Lazzaro, who has represented multiple stores that were sealed by the sheriff’s department, argued that the statute gives too much discretion to the sheriff to shut down stores.
He cited one client who was caught with just three pre-rolls in his shop and had his store shut down, and now they have to wait to see if the sheriff will allow the shop to reopen, despite the results of the hearing.
“A store could be selling 99.8% of product that is legitimate and they get caught with three marijuana pre-rolls, and yet the sheriff is sealing that place down for at least five days,” he said. “The summons was dismissed, the hearing officer found no illicit activity. We now have to wait for Sheriff Miranda about whether or not he will uphold that decision.”
Nadia Kahnauth, another attorney who has represented shop owners, stated that the sheriff’s department is not properly accounting for seized cash during their raids. She also noted that simply shutting the storefronts is not effectively curbing illicit sales.
“The closure of the stores, is it accomplishing what we want to do, or is it just driving cannabis to the streets?” she asked. “If the market supported four or five shops in one street, where did that consumer appetite go? It didn’t go away.”
