It might have been the first time, but officials with New York’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) say it won’t be the last.
Investigators with OCM and Falls Police Narcotics & Intelligence Division (NID) detectives swept into the city on July 22 to execute a trio of search warrants at apparently vacant residences, where they say illicit cannabis was being sold.
“The (Niagara County) sheriff reached out to us, and we had received complaints as well, about illicit cannabis sales,” said Dan Haughney, OCM’s Director of Enforcement and Investigations. “From the outside, these looked like just residences.”
But, Haughney said after undercover investigators with the Niagara County Drug Task Force (NCDTF) made marijuana purchases at the residences, at 435 20th St., 1840 Michigan Ave. and 1643 Weston Ave., they obtained search warrants for the homes. After the search warrants were executed, Haughney said detectives seized an average of 5.5 pounds of illicit cannabis from each location. He called the seizures “significant.”
“No one was living in these homes,” Haughney said. “They were just being used for illicit cannabis sales.”
The residences were later condemned by Falls building inspectors. OCM said no one at the residences was arrested as a result of the raids.
Previously, OCM enforcement actions in the city have been centered on storefronts and other traditional commercial spaces where cannabis was being sold without proper state licensing. Haughney said OCM has increasingly become aware that unlicensed operators are also making sales out of non-traditional commercial locations now.
“(Unlicensed dealers) don’t always keep everything they have in one location,” Haughney said. “But now they know we will walk through their door. It doesn’t matter what the illegal unlicensed operators do, we are going to shut them down.”
Speaking Tuesday from the scene of an OCM raid on an unlicensed cannabis grow operation in central New York, Haughney said it’s important to shut down unlicensed grow operations and dispensaries as a matter of public health.
“The most important thing when you get cannabis from a licensed dispensary is you know you’re getting a product that has been tested (for purity and safety),” Haughney said. “We are out every day, throughout the state. Our investigators are looking to shut down illicit operations. We take this very seriously.”