NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 After failing to wipe illegal cannabis dispensaries off the map, New York is asking online sites to hide them.
Since the state legalized marijuana in 2021, unlicensed pot shops across New York City, with limited pushback from authorities. On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul called on online map and social media companies to stop listing them.
鈥淚f you type in 鈥榗annabis dispensaries鈥 in Google Maps or Yelp, you鈥檒l get a long list of unlicensed illegal vendors,鈥 Hochul, a Democrat, said Tuesday, speaking to reporters alongside some of the owners of licensed, legal weed stores that make up a tiny minority of the cannabis shops in New York City.
In a statement, Yelp said the company believes "consumers have a First Amendment right to read and write about all businesses, even if unlicensed."
鈥淎llowing users to contribute and see information ... about unlicensed businesses serves the public interest and provides a resource for regulators to determine whether any particular business has appropriate licenses," the statement read.
Legal marijuana shops in New York pay a vice tax, purchase from local farms, and submit to quality control testing to ensure their products aren鈥檛 laced with other drugs and aren鈥檛 stronger or weaker than their label says.
But so far, fewer than 80 cannabis licensed stores have opened around the state, where strict have contributed to . Meanwhile, it鈥檚 common for a single neighborhood in New York City to have a dozen illegal ones.
Hochul eight months ago, but has failed to make noticeable progress.
Aiming to avoid an echo of prohibition-era criminalization of drug sales, New York state鈥檚 marijuana legalization doesn鈥檛 include severe criminal punishment for illegal sales and doesn鈥檛 allow most law enforcement agencies to enforce pot laws.
Legislation that Hochul signed last May gave the state powers for inspections, seizures, fines that can reach $20,000 a day and, in some cases, close shops and go after landlords.
But the governor on Wednesday said she has since learned that it wasn't enough. She said the fines aren't high enough to deter people, and noted the appeals process takes many months, allowing shops to continue raking in tax-free profits off unlicensed products that are less expensive because they can be purchased out of state.
New York City itself has tried to stem the tide by , but Mayor Eric Adams has been imploring Albany to grant the city more power to respond.
Hochul has asked the Democrat-controlled state Legislature to pass new legislation to grant more enforcement authority to city agencies, increase fines, and give law enforcement permission to shut down illegal stores before the appeals process plays out.
In the meantime, Hochul is asking tech companies 鈥渢o not be posting the sites that are illegal and ensure that they鈥檙e posting the legal shops.鈥
Local cannabis entrepreneur Osbert Ordu帽a said Google Maps keeps delisting his legal shops, one in New Jersey, and another in Queens, New York. He said he鈥檚 never had trouble with his listings on Yelp, though he鈥檇 like the site to delist illegal operators as well.
鈥淔our times, Google has taken us down off of their platform for 鈥榲iolating their terms of service.鈥 We鈥檝e done nothing other than have our store hours and our basic business information listed,鈥 he said.
Google didn't immediately respond to a query about Ordu帽a's specific circumstances, but noted in a statement responding to Hochul's comments that it does remove listings for closed venues.
鈥淚f we can confirm that a business has closed for any reason 鈥 including license issues 鈥 we鈥檒l reflect that it鈥檚 closed in the listing. We also prohibit cannabis ads in New York and remove them upon detection, often before they ever run," the statement read.
Ordu帽a said he also wants his illegal competitors, some of whom he knows personally, to be closed down. He says they tell him he's playing a 鈥渟ucker's game." But as a former Marine, he likes to do things by the book and even plans on expanding to open another store in Queens next week.
