Brian Laird on W.N.C the way, a program note, we were just

previewing the Democratic Convention

and we will have live coverage on the station

each night this week.

It's NPR's live special coverage of the prime time speeches, analysis included you can tune in tonight at

nine on WNYC and then we'll have similar coverage Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday night

but beginning tonight at nine on WNYC or live stream it at WNYC.org.

Now we're going to get local and talk about the crackdown on unlicensed New York cannabis shops.

If you live in the city, especially,

and you walk around really at all in shopping districts,

you probably seen them these bodega-like shops

that sell vapes, soda, snacks, cigarettes, and as of a couple of years

ago, when Reed became legal in New York, we, but in May, Mayor Adams kicked off a program called Operation Padlock to Protect and since then the NYPD has been rapidly by all accounts shutting down these unlicensed cannabis shops.

Nearly a thousand have been closed since the program kicked off

and they've seized more than $40 million

worth of product as they try to leave the market to the legally licensed dispensaries.

Big part of the reason that they're dealing with the proliferation of these

shops is because the legalization of cannabis in New York State back in 2019 was something of a bureaucratic

fiasco. The licensing prospect took ages, still taking ages, and in the meantime

with cannabis newly legal people took the opportunity in a way you can't

blame them of taking it into their own hands and starting to sell.

So now the city and state are catching up and trying to get the cannabis economy to come above board, above ground, and we're seeing it up close up in many neighborhoods.

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