Trap doors and flophouses: An exclusive look at citywide smoke shop crackdown

For a full exclusive look, watch the PIX11 News at 6 p.m.

UPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (PIX11) -- On a soggy Wednesday afternoon zipping around the Upper West Side with Sheriff Anthony Miranda as his teams inspected 14 stores, one thing quickly became clear: Gone are the days of unregulated weed brazenly being sold on the shelves around the city.

“When we first began, we found most of this outright, and it was very evident what was going on,” Miranda said. “Now, in this stage, people are aware we’re closing them down.”

It has forced a new level of sophistication and deception that PIX11 saw firsthand when Miranda’s deputies raided a shop off Amsterdam Avenue near 81st Street.

Mayor Eric Adams joined Miranda on-site, and investigators took both leaders into what was technically a legal CBD store. Behind the counter and in the back of the storeroom, they removed a shelf to reveal a trap door.

As a bodega cat roamed the back room, the sheriff’s investigators explained how the door led to an entire apartment filled with illegal marijuana products. Someone would sit just inside the door all day to pass on the illegal goods, investigators said.

The mayor and sheriff walked around the corner, zigzagging through a narrow alleyway, into a utility room and eventually a flooded-out flophouse.

In the apartment, the illegal marijuana was processed in a small room in the back — and unregulated marijuana was everywhere. The room smelled of mold and marijuana.

A narrow staircase led up to the other side of the trap door. There was a pillow for someone to sit on and products — pre-rolls, gummies, chocolates, and oils — ready to pass.

The NYC Sheriff’s Office has padlocked more than 850 stores, issued $70 million in fines, and seized $40 million in products during the past few months.

Miranda said most of the raided stores stay closed because local NYPD precinct cops keep an eye on them, and landlords generally evict following a raid because they don’t want the headache — although a few raided shops have tried to reopen only to be shut down again.

An emerging trend, according to the sheriff, is bad operators folding up on their own, realizing the free-for-all of the last two years is over thanks to stiffer fines and more padlock enforcement.

Adams pushed for those changes to the law because many illegal smoke shops market their products to children and have become a magnet for criminal activity.

“We saw the robberies, we saw the shootings, we saw the erosion of the quality of life inside out communities, and the communities had enough,” Adams declared last week while celebrating the padlocking of smoke shops.

Often, harder drugs, even guns, are found during raids like the one PIX11 witnessed, but that was not the case on the Upper West Side Wednesday.

Councilwoman Gale Brewer also participated in the raid in her district. She said the sophisticated setup shows the unique emerging challenge the city faces as the crackdown continues.

"On many levels, it’s unhealthy, unsafe, and it’s obviously illegal,” Brewer said. “This combination is horrific, in my opinion.”

Miranda said his officers have done more than 3,000 inspections so far but he knows there is more work to be done, especially as the illegal activity evolves.

Illegal cannabis activity in New York City can be reported online.