Bed-Stuy Smoke Shops

“Shut them down. Period. If they are illegal, then they need to be shut down.” Kayla M

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor-at-Large
Walking through heavy clouds of marijuana smoke blown out freely on busy Brooklyn streets is a common occurrence these days.
The new ‘liquors’ stores are the weed spots on many Brooklyn commercial strips. There can be as many as five smoke shops within 50 yards of each other.
What are people really imbibing? Fentanyl. Embalming fluid. Extra addictive additions?
Gummy bears that can take a life? Edibles not fit for consumption?
Reports out of Brownsville have three children recently taking ill allegedly after consuming gummy edibles. It is a severe concern.
“Marijuana is not going to kill you, but we have to figure out what the illegal market is lacing it with; that’s the problem,” Assemblywoman Stefani Zinerman told Our Time Press. “We don’t even know if we have anecdotes for what this is so that we can get people away from it. Fentanyl is the thing that we should be up in arms about. We have to figure out how to get it off our streets.”

Around the area of the Nostrand Avenue and Fulton Street crossroads, there are at least seven marijuana spots. Some have security. Some are walk-ins. Some have bright lights, colorful merchandise, and hookahs in the window.
Kayla M. is a Brownsville teacher, parent, and grandparent. She told Our Time Press that she is concerned about children in school uniforms on Fulton Street in Bed Stuy, going into two smoke shops/weed spots after school, and purchasing products.
“I am very concerned with the access that our children are being granted to gummy types of edibles,” she said. “I am concerned with the way it is being marketed. It looks like candy, chips, cotton candy—everything to entice our youth. There are students who are going into these establishments right after school with their uniforms on. They know they are children and are still giving them access to these items. I have seen it with my own eyes more than once in two separate locations – on Fulton Street and Kingston Avenue, and Fulton Street and Marcus Garvey Blvd.
“When I called 311, they told me that I had to wait there for the police to make the report. I thought that was insane because I live in the community and want my voice to be heard, but I don’t want to be identified as the person who called.
I even stopped the kids and explained that you don’t know whatever it is in what they are selling [to] them.”
Speaking to Mayor Eric Adams through Our Time Press, the activist-mom-teacher said, “We need oversight. There needs to be some sort of protocol in place so that our children are not granted greenlight access to these items.
Shut them down. Period. If they are illegal, then they need to be shut down. Anyone else who is operating illegally is shut down.”
Kayla said that she was irked by the obvious double standard.

“So, there are restrictions on smoking cigarettes, but you have the green light to smoke marijuana. I feel sorry for the kids because it’s a contradiction. In the past, when our children were selling, they were drug dealers. Now, these people are pharmaceutical engineers. We were criminalized.”
The adult use of cannabis became law on March 31, 2021, with the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act. The Office of Cannabis Management was established, they say, to “implement a comprehensive regulatory framework to cover medical, adult-use, and cannabinoid hemp programs.”
The NYC Department of Small Business Services said that they launched Cannabis NYC “to make our city the global leader for cannabis industry excellence in education and equity across business, science, and culture…Cannabis NYC will support the creation of good jobs, successful small businesses, and sustainable economic opportunity to address the historic harms of cannabis prohibition.”

“We need to put every so-called illegal store on notice - ‘Stop selling this stuff to our children.’ They need to be shut down,” said Daniel Goodine, co-founder of Brownsville’s Men Elevating Leadership.

 This week, Mayor Eric Adams put the ball firmly in Albany’s court. “We are hoping that we get some real teeth in cannabis,” he said. “I want to close these cannabis shops in our city. This is a problem that has become extremely widespread, and we can do it. We can clean it up if we’re given the teeth to do so. I thank Assemblywoman Rajkumar for her bill. What she is introducing is a good step in the right direction.”

There are 40 ‘legal’ weed shops statewide and about 3500 ones operating without a license. That’s 11 legal ones in New York City and 1500 illegal ones.
Queens New York State Assemblywoman Jennifer Rajkumar introduced her ‘Smokeout Act’ bill to give cities and municipalities the power to close unlicensed weed shops statewide. “These smoke shops are deeply unpopular,” she said in a broadcast interview. “They are hotbeds of crime. They endanger our children. And it’s time to shut them down once and for all.’
Mayor Adams said if the bill passed, he would move on the spots within 30 days.
At press time, during her State of the State address, Governor Hochul said that they would “propose legislation to strengthen the Cannabis Law to better enable the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), as well as local government agencies, to seal or padlock an unlicensed cannabis business. These are necessary steps towards shutting down unlawful and unlicensed cannabis operations that jeopardize public safety and the integrity of the State’s legal cannabis market.”

“Literally, people are playing chemists, and they are not chemists,” Assemblywoman Zinerman told the paper.
The American Academy of Pediatrics published an article entitled “Pediatric Edible Cannabis Exposures and Acute Toxicity: 2017–2021.”
The article states, “There has been a consistent increase in pediatric edible cannabis exposures over the past five years, with the potential for significant toxicity.”
The New York Times reported on the study, “There were more than 7,000 reported cases of accidental ingestion by children five and under between 2017 and 2021.”
“To decriminalize marijuana was to ensure the safety and integrity of the plant from seed to sale,” said Bed Stuy elected and mother Assemblywoman Zinerman. “Unfortunately, that did not stop the proliferation of illegal smoke shops on our commercial strips. The health and safety of our citizens – especially our children – who it is illegal for them to purchase, consume, and to be sold to…It is illegal to sell to this vulnerable population. This has exposed our children to the danger of an illegal and unregulated substance. The state and the city must work together to ensure greater enforcement. The landlords who rent to these establishments must be held accountable.
This issue is so pervasive that it’s going to take citizens, government, and community-based organizations to shut down these illegal operations in our community.
“We have to educate parents and children, in conjunction with the DOE… you used to have DARE, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in schools, and so the students should have access to a nurse and a social worker to figure out why are they self-anesthetizing? What’s going on at home?

Most people self-medicate because they are dealing with something traumatic. But, whatever it is, we need to get to the root of it and ensure that they have the social services to help them deal with what really is becoming endemic in an addictive way. If you are smoking weed once or twice a day – you are addicted.”
She concluded, “The question is, ‘Who owns those buildings, those bodegas?’ The Office of Cannabis Management says that they don’t have enough people to investigate and enforce, but they should have thought about that beforehand.”
In the chaotic drug-fueled 80s, Bed Stuy’s Black Men’s Movement Against Crack (BMMAC) campaign closed down crack houses throughout the neighborhood independent of any public policy. It’s what was needed: community action. Now weed, the once criminalized drug, is making millionaires out of soccer moms and Wall Street types.
“The fact that an illegal substance that can now be legally sold as the most explosive new commercial business venture for Black men to run – note, I did not say own, is an irony not lost on those of us who are conscious,” BMMAC co-founder Omowale Clay told Our Time Press. “This trick, which is easily condoned by the greedy and self-indulgent, can only punish our people and target our children.”