Assembly Member John Zaccaro Jr. visited three Bronx cannabis dispensaries Tuesday as part of a fact-finding mission to see how state lawmakers can better support legal operators.
Zaccaro kicked off the tour with a press conference at Hush New York, a licensed dispensary on Williamsbridge Road, less than a block from a shuttered illicit cannabis store. He made clear the need to get rid of vendors peddling pot without a license.
"As a father, as a lawmaker, and as a lifelong Bronxite I cannot in good conscience continue to standby and do nothing as my community is inundated with unregulated, illegal cannabis," Zaccaro said. "I'm proud of the work that we've done with the New York City Sheriff's office, and since tougher enforcement powers were passed in [the] state budget, we have seen the results."
Since May, when the city and state began their coordinated crackdown on unlicensed vendors, Zaccaro said that 486 suspected illegal cannabis stores in the Bronx had been inspected, and out of those, 217 stores were padlocked.
Read more on Bronx Times.