BARRYVILLE, NY — “First one??” posted Gina Cicchetti on the River Reporter’s Facebook page back in April, when the paper announced the opening of Sullivan County’s first adult-use cannabis shop. “There’s like one in every town.”

It’s true that other shops besides the legal Platinum Leaf in Rock Hill have been selling the drug without a license, as the NYS Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has found.

“The shops themselves aren’t necessarily illegal,” Taylor Randi Lee of the NYS Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) told the River Reporter in an email discussing five Sullivan County businesses found to be selling cannabis without a license. “What was seized from them is illicit cannabis—semantics, but the shop itself may have a license to be selling other items, just not cannabis.”

The shops are Puff and Paddles, 3344 State Route 97, Barryville; Sullivan Convenience & Smoke, 1987 State Route 52, Liberty; JK3 Food Mart, Citgo Gas Station, 68 Pleasant Street, Monticello; Catskills Northern Lights, 45 North Main Street, Liberty; and Broadway 420 Smoke Shop, 420 Broadway, Monticello.

Lee said the OCM’s enforcement team conducted regulatory inspections for the illicit sale of cannabis from July 30 through August 1. Eight businesses in Orange County were also found to be selling cannabis illegally (see sidebar). 

Some of the businesses were issued an order to seal, Lee said, while others were issued a notice of violation.

“The orders to seal are padlocked locations that cannot be entered until after an administrative hearing, if requested,” Lee said. It’s up to an administrative law judge to decide the consequences for each.

Lee said the OCM does not know how long the businesses were selling cannabis products illegally. Most have other products for sale.

Protecting the legal market

In April, Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced new measures to protect the legal cannabis market, granting the OCM and local authorities greater power to take action against illegal storefronts. In May she launched the NYS Cannabis Enforcement Task Force to coordinate efforts across state agencies. The task force has closed 230 illegal operations outside of the New York City, and a total of 1,000 statewide.

Hochul said legal dispensaries are reporting a significant uptick in business as a result of the state’s enforcement action.

Lee said OCM’s enforcement team conducts inspections in collaboration with NYS Cannabis Enforcement Task Force, which includes investigators from a range of agencies, including the NYS Department of Tax and Finance and the NYS Police, and with local law enforcement agencies, including the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office.

The OCM’s actions were also informed by “community member complaints, and intelligence information put together by OCM and the Department of Tax and Finance,” Lee said.

She said the OCM will test all confiscated products for potentially toxic substances that would not be found in legally sold cannabis products. They will be tested for potency and for terpene, the naturally occurring chemical compounds that give cannabis and other plants their distinctive fragrance and flavor. They will also be tested for the contaminants of concern listed in OCM’s Cannabis Testing Limits document, which was updated in July, and includes such unwanted ingredients like fungi, heavy metals, animal excretions, and salmonella.

But if harmful additives are found in the illegal products, the proprietors will not be further charged. “Currently the cannabis law does not provide for additional charges of additives,” Lee said.

The New York Times reported in December 2022 that OCM’s lab tests conducted on cannabis products purchased from 20 unlicensed shops “detected prohibited levels of eight different contaminants, including E. coli, salmonella, nickel and lead.”

A list of businesses licensed to sell recreational cannabis may be found at https://cannabis.ny.gov/dispensary-location-verification.