Several readers have told us that a smoke shop is opening in the former D-Lish Pita space on Avenue A at East Sixth Street... we haven't been by when anyone has been working on the space... though the gate is partially open, revealing some of the items that will be for sale...
The store is next door to 99¢ Pizza, which opened in late December. As for smoke shops on Avenue A, Smoke & Beer opened between East 13th Street and East 14th Street earlier this month.
Anyway, it's nice that some new retail shops are opening ahead of the residential developments going up ... like this one... and this one.. and this one ... and this one.. and this one.
i suspect that the legalized synthetic or whatever it is pot will have the sweet-tooth hunger side effect and that all these smoke shop/candy stores are needed because this new generation can't walk more than 10 feet for a snack.
ReplyDeleteand of course a smoke is so much better when comes from an expensive, multi-colored blown glass artwork water pipe.
Even if weed were already legal in NYS, there wouldn't be a need for so many of these places. St. Mark's between 2nd and 3rd has been getting the job done for decades now, and while those fancy glass pipes aren't cheap, they are also sort of a one-and-done purchase, at least until your cat knocks your bong over and it breaks. Sidebar: why don't any of these places sell the classic Graffix acrylic bongs? and why did I ever throw my supercool 90s Graffix bong festooned with Calvin and Hobbes stickers away??
ReplyDeleteBack on topic, IDGI. A liquor store can easily handle overhead because they are selling the drug itself, and for serious drinkers there is never enough booze, hence repeat customers. Aside from infrequently purchased big-ticket items like pipes or possibly fancy cigars, these smoke shops sell mid-range items like beer and cigs -- which can be purchased virtually anywhere else already -- and dinky items like screens, lighters, and gum/mints, which will never pay the rent.
I'm very pro-legalization and will always prefer a smoke shop to a bar (or a CVS yadda yadda), but already these places are shaping up to be the artisanal froyo of the mid 2010s.
This has to stop. It's been proven that e-cigarettes are just as bad as the real things, different chemicals but also poisonous, so why is the city allowing so many to open? Where are the health watchdogs to take a stand against pollution like these smoke shops?
ReplyDeleteThe libertarian solution is to boycott smoke shops, now more than ever....
ReplyDeleteBill, anarchist, libertarian
Remember they used to call them "head shops"? Boy, I feel old.
ReplyDeleteCrack Pipe Store!
ReplyDeleteAll is needed is a retro smoke in from days gone by
ReplyDeleteCan someone explain? Are these guys relatives? So landlords owe them cause of heavy cousins? I just dont get it. Storefront businesses are closing right and left, and we get a proliferation of . . . e-cig and pipe stores. Has this anything to do with the "too big to fail" model that we have in the banking industry now?
ReplyDelete@7:28. I don't understand some of the sundry stores that open and seem to do little if any business. The store that replaced the shoe repair shop on the south side of 9th Street near First Avenue is a good example, as is the one on First Avenue between 9th and 10th, near the defunct This Little Piggy.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to VAPE! I love vaping! VAPE VAPE VAPE!
ReplyDeleteWho's going to VapeFest this year!
#forevervape