Unlicensed pot shops went to Federal court last week hoping to stall the city’s crackdown, known as Operation Padlock to Protect, which has shuttered a mere 100-odd of the Big Apple’s estimated 2,000 illicit dealers.
Unlicensed pot shops breed crime and endanger buyers with possibly contaminated weed. They also sell to underage users and make a mockery of the state’s bureaucratically hobbled rollout of legal dispensaries, which they outnumber by twenty to one. But the city was powerless to rein them in until April, when the state legislature, prodded by Gov. Kathy Hochul, finally allowed municipalities to take action against them without Albany’s blessing.
One shutdown took out notorious Smile Smoke on Third Avenue, formerly a Bright Smile teeth-shine clinic that was next door to celebrity restaurant Scalintalla and a stoner’s throw from Bloomingdale’s.