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After failing to wipe illegal cannabis dispensaries off the map, New York is asking online sites to hide them.<\/p>\n
Since the state legalized marijuana in 2021, unlicensed pot shops\u00a0have proliferated<\/a>\u00a0across 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.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you type in \u2018cannabis dispensaries\u2019 in Google<\/a> Maps or Yelp, you\u2019ll get a long list of unlicensed illegal vendors,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n In a statement, Yelp said the company believes \u201cconsumers have a First Amendment right to read and write about all businesses, even if unlicensed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAllowing users to contribute and see information \u2026 about unlicensed businesses serves the public interest and provides a resource for regulators to determine whether any particular business has appropriate licenses,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t laced with other drugs and aren\u2019t stronger or weaker than their label says.<\/p>\n But so far, fewer than 80 cannabis licensed stores have opened around the state, where strict\u00a0eligibility requirements and lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0have contributed to\u00a0slowing the rollout<\/a>. Meanwhile, it\u2019s common for a single neighborhood in New York City to have a dozen illegal ones.<\/p>\n Hochul\u00a0vowed to crack down<\/a>\u00a0eight months ago, but has failed to make noticeable progress.<\/p>\n Aiming to avoid an echo of prohibition-era criminalization of drug sales, New York state\u2019s marijuana legalization doesn\u2019t include severe criminal punishment for illegal sales and doesn\u2019t allow most law enforcement agencies to enforce pot laws.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n But the governor on Wednesday said she has since learned that it wasn\u2019t enough. She said the fines aren\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n New York City itself has tried to stem the tide by\u00a0going after landlords<\/a>, but Mayor Eric Adams has been imploring Albany to grant the city more power to respond.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n In the meantime, Hochul is asking tech companies \u201cto not be posting the sites that are illegal and ensure that they\u2019re posting the legal shops.\u201d<\/p>\n Local cannabis entrepreneur Osbert Ordu\u00f1a said Google Maps keeps delisting his legal shops, one in New Jersey, and another in Queens, New York. He said he\u2019s never had trouble with his listings on Yelp, though he\u2019d like the site to delist illegal operators as well.<\/p>\n \u201cFour times, Google has taken us down off of their platform for \u2018violating their terms of service.\u2019 We\u2019ve done nothing other than have our store hours and our basic business information listed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Google didn\u2019t immediately respond to a query about Ordu\u00f1a\u2019s specific circumstances, but noted in a statement responding to Hochul\u2019s comments that it does remove listings for closed venues.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we can confirm that a business has closed for any reason \u2013 including license issues \u2013 we\u2019ll reflect that it\u2019s closed in the listing. We also prohibit cannabis ads in New York and remove them upon detection, often before they ever run,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n Ordu\u00f1a said he also wants his illegal competitors, some of whom he knows personally, to be closed down. He says they tell him he\u2019s playing a \u201csucker\u2019s game.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSubscribe to the new Fortune CEO Weekly Europe newsletter to get corner office insights on the biggest business stories in Europe. Sign up<\/a> for free.<\/div>\n