The Buffalo Common Council unanimously approved a pair of bills Thursday that allows city officials to more aggressively go after unlicensed marijuana dispensaries.
The new legislation gives the city’s Department of Permit and Inspection Services the authority to inspect dispensaries, search unlicensed businesses suspected of selling marijuana, seize and destroy illicit products, shutter unlicensed businesses, hold landlords of unlicensed dispensaries accountable and impose fines of up to $10,000 per day.
Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah M. Halton-Pope, who sponsored the legislation, said that the measures would support legal dispensaries that generate tax revenue and protect buyers from unregulated and potentially faulty products sold at unlicensed businesses.
“This creates an opportunity to make sure that the public health is protected, to make sure that there’s local control [and that] there’s community safety, and it provides for economic fairness,” Halton-Pope said in a speech following the vote.
The new local laws come a little more than a year after the New York State Legislature voted to allow municipalities to crack down on illicit marijuana establishments as a part of the FY25 budget.
Thousands of unlicensed dispensaries have cropped up all over the state has marijuana was legalized in 2022, according to a spokesperson for the Common Council. In 2024, the state’s Office of Cannabis Management alone has shut down 450 unlicensed dispensaries and seized more than 68 million dollars’ worth of illicit marijuana products, according to OCM’s 2024 enforcement report. A Columbia University study of 37 dispensaries in New York City found that 10% of unlicensed dispensaries checked ID prior to entry, compared to all licensed dispensaries that did so.
“I have a decent amount of cannabis shops in my district, and I have not had an issue with any of them, and I wish that the dirty corner stores and the vape shops would be up to the standard of the cannabis dispensaries that we have,” Common Councilmember Mitch Nowakowski said in a speech after the vote. “We need to be able to effectively enforce because we live growingly in a world where people think they can get away with everything and can’t be held accountable. We need to have a mechanism to show that we do have rules and that you need to follow them.”
The legislation now goes to Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon, who must hold a public hearing before he can sign off on the bills.