When Norwood News contacted the council to ask a related question about the law, in perhaps another sign of ongoing tensions between the Adams administration and the council, a deputy press secretary at the Office of City Council Speaker Adrienne E. Adams, said in part, “As part of the [Adams] Administration’s required quarterly reporting [on] this law, we learned in March that shockingly, they reported that zero notices or summonses were issued to commercial landlords and thus, none were found in violation.”

 

We asked the deputy secretary which agency was responsible for issuing the summonses. We did not receive an immediate response. New York City Mayor Eric Adams was scheduled to join New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for a joint press conference on the topic of cannabis regulation on Friday morning, April 19.  A further story will follow.

 

Meanwhile, as reported, some elected officials have been joining the Sheriff’s department on various smoke shop raids across The Bronx when it is believed they are operating illegally, while NYS Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has also been stepping up the pressure on their end on unlicensed stores.

 

Meanwhile, it would appear that illegal weed shops continue to operate and are also being robbed. The NYPD is asking the public for help identifying one of two suspects captured on surveillance video, wanted in connection with a series of armed robberies or attempted robberies of smoke shops located within the borders of the 52nd Precinct, which covers some or all of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham, Kingsbridge, Bronx Park, and University Heights.

 

Police said an unidentified person approached the store’s tiny, street-level window and displayed a firearm to a 32-year-old male employee. They said the suspect then stole $3,000 and fled the location on foot, heading northbound on the Grand Concourse. No injuries were reported.

 

The store sits directly across the street from P.S. 246, located at 2641 Grand Concourse. On Friday, April 5, a female school safety agent at the school told Norwood News, “Oh, we’ve called 311 several times about that place and the State Police have shut them down two or three times.”

The NYPD reported another robbery at Mr. Exotix Smoke Shop, located at 290 East Kingsbridge Road, also in Fordham Manor, at 11.24 a.m. on Wednesday, April 3. Police said the incident occurred across the street from the Bronx Library Center, adding that two unidentified people entered the shore, displayed a gun, and demanded cash.

According to OCM, the shop was shut on Nov. 15, 2022, when it was called “Luis & Christian Candy Store Corp.” and once again on Nov. 28, 2022, when it was called “Mazai Smoke Place Corp.”

 

Meanwhile, the Magic 7 Smoke Shop, located at 174 West Fordham Road in University Heights, was the site of a brutal homicide and has closed for good. Police were called to the location on Saturday, July 30, 2022, after a man was stabbed inside the store.

 

As previously reported, police identified the victim as Kenneth Fair, 59, who was allegedly stabbed in the neck by store employee, Vernon Gowdy, 54. Gowdy has been charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a weapon. Norwood News reached out to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office for a status update on his case, and will share any updates we receive. He is deemed innocent unless and until convicted in a court of law.

“These illicit vendors flagrantly violate our laws by selling to kids, evading our taxes, and engaging in fraudulent advertising about their products,” Hochul said. “We learned over the last year we had to take it a step further – $10,000, $20,000 fines are just too small, and they take too long to collect. They have drawn out investigations, months of hearings and appeals before these shops are told to pony up.”

 

She added, “In the meantime, guess what happens? The doors are still open. The money keeps rolling in. More and more cash keeps going in their doors, and not the doors of our legitimate operators, and that’s what needs to change.”

 

For more historical coverage on this topic, click here, here, and here. As reported, Bronx Community Board 7 (CB7) announced last year that a public hearing on adult-use retail cannabis dispensary license applications which was scheduled for Nov. 14, 2023, was later canceled before the hearing date, since all four applicants rescinded the notifications sent to Bronx CB7, to present and discuss their applications.

 

Another public hearing, chaired by the CB7 health committee, was held on Jan. 16 to review two notifications. The first motion for a vote on the matter, taken at the January CB7 executive committee meeting, as the health committee didn’t have a quorum at the January meeting, was to consider sending a letter of support to the OCM for an Adult-Use Cannabis Retail Dispensary License at 61 East Kingsbridge Road, Bronx, NY 10468. The motion did not pass, with seven “no” votes, one abstention, and two absences.

 

At the same meeting, the executive committee also considered a motion to send a letter of support to OCM for an Adult-Use Cannabis Retail Dispensary License at 3584 Jerome Avenue, Bronx, NY 10467, and the motion passed with six “yes” votes, one abstention, one “no” vote, and two absences.

 

There had been some objections from resdents to previous applications. The board has advised that those wishing to report an incident should refer to this page for details on how to do so.

Anyone with any information on any of the referenced crimes is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1 (800) 577-TIPS. All calls remain confidential.

 

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include information about two notices for license applications sent to Bronx CB7 ahead of the January public hearing.