A Neighborhood Battles Illegal Weed Shops: ‘We’ve Been Begging for Help’

Just before 11 p.m. on a recent Saturday, a young woman was buzzed into Flame Zone Convenience, an unlicensed weed store on Delancey Street in the Lower East Side displaying bags of potent gummies and multiple strains of marijuana, including one called Gunpowder.

It was four days after Mayor Eric Adams had announced a crackdown on unlicensed shops. But the woman paid $20 for a joint, and then began smoking it on the sidewalk.

A few minutes later, at Dubai Cannabis Supply, an unlicensed shop nearby on Stanton Street, a visitor asked: “Do you have ’shroom chocolate bars, by any chance?”

A glass display case inside included Diamond Shruumz bars in fruity cereal and cookie butter flavors, which are marketed as containing psilocybin — a psychedelic compound found in over 200 types of mushrooms that is illegal to possess in New York.

Multiple other unlicensed shops were open for business within a few blocks, offering cannabis-based intoxicants including joints, vape cartridges, rosin, THC-infused gummies, chocolates and tinctures.

Nearly 3,000 unlicensed cannabis stores are estimated to have opened across New York City since 2021, when a state bill was passed legalizing recreational marijuana and allowing for the distribution of retail cannabis licenses. There are 132 licensed adult-use dispensaries across the state, according to the Office of Cannabis Management, with 62 in the city.