Illegal marijuana shop thrives across the street from City Hall

The unlicensed Big Apple marijuana shop sidesteps the authorities and brazenly supports the good times – and the blunts – right under the noses of City Hall.

The Jungle Boys smugly operate from the famed Broadway building, which also houses some of Mayor Eric Adams’ staff and various city agencies, and is only 80 meters from New York City’s majestic epicenter of government.

“I know what we’re selling to them city hall people,” shrugged Jungle Boys employee Edward Nunez Lopez, who would not reveal any big names.

The store has been a brisk business — even after a couple of inconvenient police raids that haven’t had a lasting effect — since it opened in the fall, Lopez said.

“Everyone in the building comes here. All! People who don’t smoke eat food. People who don’t eat edibles make chocolate,” he continued.

The marijuana mall at 253 Broadway, also located next door to a government building used by city council and state legislators, was able to stay in business because the state never imposed strict enforcement rules for the future of the retail market when legalizing recreational weed in the state. 2021, critics say.

“I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry,” said Councilman Justin Brennan (D-Brooklyn), one of many predominantly progressive politicians who supported marijuana legalization but is now outraged by lax enforcement of illegal pharmacy laws.

“An illegal marijuana shop operating freely across the street from the New York government building only proves how ridiculous this all has become,” he added.

And it shows just how much is happening in New York these days,” said Tom Chzik, 62, a construction site administrator.

“There is a certain irony in the fact that the mayor’s office…. . across the street from him,” he said. “It’s a weird stupid place and we’ll just tolerate some things.”

Jungle Boys, unrelated to the thriving Los Angeles-based cannabis dispensary of the same name, boasts a wide range of smokeable and eatable marijuana products, as well as $100 bongs and other stoner favorites.

A city and state task force made up of city sheriff’s deputies, NYPD police and other agencies raided the establishment in December and January, seizing $175,883 worth of groceries, officials said.

The Jungle Boys also face yet-to-be-determined fines after being held criminally and civilly liable for illegal possession of cannabis, operating without a license and other offenses, officials said.

Like most of the approximately 1,400 illegal cannabis shops operating throughout the city, Jungle Boys operators weren’t put off by this.

It restocked shelves and reopened on Monday without a hitch, two weeks after the task force checked on Jan. 26 — simply chalking it up to the cost of doing business in the lucrative marijuana world, workers say.

City Sheriff Anthony Miranda and the NYPD leadership testified at a council hearing last month that existing laws make it difficult to weed out and close illegal marijuana shops, adding that they can usually only impose a measly $250 fine, which is unlikely. is a deterrent even after the confiscation of marijuana and foodstuffs.

Only two cannabis stores are legally operating in New York City, with a third due to open on Monday in Manhattan’s Union Square as a huge, unregulated black market has emerged during the slow rollout of the state’s cannabis licensing program.

In an attempt to fight back, Mayor Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Tuesday that the city will step up its crackdown on illegal marijuana stores by targeting homeowners.

Bragg, a typical crime fighter, said his office sent more than 400 letters to unlicensed store owners notifying them to evict tenants selling illegal marijuana or watch the state do it for them.

Michael Alcazar, an associate professor of criminal justice at John Jay College and a former NYPD detective, said it was not surprising that the store opened across from City Hall, given “the lawlessness that has gripped New York.”

“This is a direct slap in the face to the mayor and state legislators who made this environment favorable for marijuana dealers,” he said. “The message is loud and clear: New York has become the Wild Wild West!”

The iconic 19th-century building, the former Home Life Insurance Company building at 253 Broadway, is now a predominantly city-owned condominium complex, but the lower level where the Jungle Boys are located is owned by a real estate company from Mineola, New York . Malachite group. The company declined to comment.

City Hall declined to answer questions about an illegal pharmacy producing a lot of greens so close to City Hall, instead citing comments by Adams on Tuesday in which he promised to count on “all levels of government to address” fraudulent weed stores.

Hazel Crampton-Hayes, spokeswoman for Governor Hokul, said the state is “using every tool at our disposal to stop illegal operations and keep New Yorkers safe.”

However, some New Yorkers, including city workers who regularly walk past the Jungle Boys, say the current crackdown efforts just aren’t working.

“It’s not nice out there,” said Daniel Suarez, an employee of the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services. “Especially when tourists come. They see City Hall—and then this!”