Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
Several weeks ago, two smoke shops were robbed near Fourth Street and Avenue B — the Green Apple Smoke Shop, 240 E. Fourth St., and Best NY Smoke Shop at 46 Avenue B.
The suspect allegedly assaulted the workers at both locations and has since been apprehended. Police sources tell us that the suspect had a gun, though it turned out to be fake. Per our sources, he was wanted for similar robberies in the Bronx and Uptown.
Green Apple, one of the many unlicensed cannabis businesses to pop up in the past two years, never reopened after the attack. We're told the worker on duty was severely injured.
The shop is now permanently closed. Yesterday, management started cleaning out the shop. We were invited inside to see the damage from the robbery...
9 comments:
I am sorry for the worker, who I hope makes a speedy recovery, but otherwise...oh no. oh dear. what shall we do.
RE: "what shall we do."
Jail repeat offender.
We would not have all these illicit shops if the licensing requirements were so restrictive.
Yet the pols still insist that NYS is “doing it right”.
I finally went to a legal dispensary today (Gotham). It wasn't bad! Not the same level of product variety I was used to in California and pretty damn expensive, but better than the inconsistent grey market shops. And they had CBD joints (no THC), which can be hard to find. I was a little thrown off by the labelling on some of the packages, which provide mg doses of THC instead of percentages.
Hope worker is ok
Sarah was sarcastic, I think.
I think you might have missed the point of licensing. It's not a deli.
Also, try to get a license for alcohol distribution, you'll find out what restrictive really means.
I hate the trend of a place closing and becoming a smoke shop. I know there's a lot of empty storefronts in the area - and usually it's because of insane asking rents that can't support a location that needs to actually make a profit to exist (aka not Blank Street coffee etc)... But landlords that rent out to illegal smoke shops should be fined more than the rent they earned. It would quickly stop this shit.
I'm sorry for the worker who was assaulted and the overall destruction that happened here... but also i'd be more than happy to never see these shops again.
They were so nice there! I’m so upset! Praying for his recovery
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