Authorities in New York state have closed 1,009 illicit marijuana sellers since the spring, including 779 in New York City alone.
That was the message that Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams shared with the state’s residents and legal cannabis industry during a joint news conference Wednesday.
As a direct result of the crackdown, which began in earnest in May, regulated adult-use sales are on the rise at the state’s 152 legal retailers, including a 72% increase in New York City alone, according to the governor.
That’s good news for the state’s legal marijuana industry, where adult-use retailers recorded only $123 million in sales in 2023, about one-quarter of projections.
And a chief culprit for the slow rollout has been the state’s audacious illicit market, now a target of Hochul and Adams.
But the tide could be turning.
According to one marijuana retailer, Leann Mata, her store – Matawana in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood – has experienced a staggering 3,000% increase in visits.
In July alone, the Black-owned store “sold about 500 percent more product than in months before enforcement began,” Mata said in a news release from Hochul’s office.
The state legalized adult-use sales in March 2021, but since then, efforts to launch what was touted as the country’s most equitable and small-business-friendly cannabis industry floundered because of the illicit market, bureaucracy and numerous lawsuits – including litigation directed by unlicensed operators at New York City’s Operation Padlock to Protect program.
