Mayor Eric Adams of New York City visited a legal cannabis dispensary owned by a longtime ally last week, hoping to raise money for his struggling re-election campaign from a constituency that has benefited from his administration’s closure of illegal weed shops.
Before stopping by the shop, called Sweetlife, last Thursday, Mr. Adams met with a small crowd of dispensary owners and brand salespeople at a bar next door. He said his administration had saved jobs by allowing small businesses to fix violations before slapping them with fines.
“My small business services went into establishments like these, and stated, we’re going to find ways not to fine you, we’re going to find ways to give you a cure period to correct whatever conditions you’re dealing with so that you can keep your business open and operating,” he said.
Left unsaid during the event was the fact that the dispensary is owned and managed by people who previously operated a bakery, located in the same Upper East Side storefront, that was shut down by the city in 2023 for selling cannabis-infused snacks without a license.
Mr. Adams was unaware of the connection, his campaign said. But it turned an event intended to showcase his accomplishments into one that highlighted the gap between the city’s enforcement against rogue shops and the state’s promise to keep their owners out of the legal cannabis market.
New York legalized cannabis in 2021 with the goal of propping up small businesses that would help repair communities hit hardest in the past by marijuana enforcement.
Lawmakers included a social equity plan that envisioned half of business licenses going to members of marginalized groups like women and veterans, as well as people harmed by arrests and other anti-marijuana policies.
Before officials handed out any licenses, though, thousands of shops began popping up and illegally selling cannabis, sowing confusion. As the city and the state worked out how to shut them down, regulators threatened to prohibit their owners from ever being licensed to sell cannabis products legally.
Mr. Adams has proudly boasted of closing more than 1,300 unlicensed smoke shops that were undercutting the legal market. At the fund-raiser, he said that he would push for tax reforms in his second term that would help the legal industry grow.
But the owners of the bakery found a workaround that exploits New York’s efforts to foster diversity in the market.
Sweetlife opened last fall under a social equity license issued to The Hooch, a company owned by Concepcion Ranocchia, an Army veteran and an ally of Mr. Adams from his time as Brooklyn borough president.
But it is partly owned by Adis Kolenovic and run by Billy Qirollari, men who owned the bakery, which had the similar name Sweetooth, according to public business records, media reports and interviews.
Todd Shapiro, a spokesman for Mr. Adams’s campaign, said the mayor was not involved in deciding to hold the fund-raiser at the dispensary and that he had no knowledge of its connection to the previous unlicensed business.
Sweetooth had three locations, all of which were raided by a city task force in May 2023. The enforcement resulted in more than $100,000 in fines, according to the city. Officials could not confirm if they were ever paid.
According to state licensing records, Ms. Ranocchia, who is Hispanic, qualified for priority consideration for a license on the basis of being a minority, a service-disabled veteran, a woman and an individual from a community disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of cannabis prohibition.
In an interview before the fund-raiser, Ms. Ranocchia said a friend had encouraged her to apply to open a dispensary. She said she had been offended that the state gave the first licenses to people with cannabis-related convictions, whom she called criminals. She denied any association with the unlicensed bakery.
In a brief follow-up conversation this week, Ms. Ranocchia said she was unaware that Mr. Kolenovic and Mr. Qirollari had operated the bakery. She said that she and Mr. Kolenovic were the sole owners of the dispensary and that Mr. Qirollari was its manager, whom she “wouldn’t trade for anything.”
State regulations require people who apply for cannabis business licenses to disclose the names of their companies’ owners and major investors for official background checks. The process is supposed to filter out people who operated unlicensed shops. But industry lawyers say that not everyone is fully forthcoming and some scofflaws have slipped through the process undetected.
The Office of Cannabis Management, which reviews the applications, declined to say whether it had a record of Mr. Kolenovic or Mr. Qirollari owning Sweetlife, the dispensary. A spokeswoman for the agency, Taylor Randi Lee, said that nothing had surfaced in the agency’s background check of The Hooch that warranted denying the company a license.
Mr. Kolenovic, a real estate broker who also owns a cafe in Astoria, did not respond to messages seeking comment. Mr. Qirollari initially denied having been associated with the bakery when The Times visited the dispensary ahead of the fund-raiser. In a subsequent statement, he said his work with the bakery had been limited to marketing.
“I’ve since transitioned fully into the legal market — exactly what New York’s cannabis laws were designed to encourage, especially for those with justice-involved or legacy backgrounds,” he said.
But Mr. Qirollari was identified as one of Sweetooth’s owners in two publications, including Honeysuckle, a cannabis magazine. He also registered a limited liability corporation for a fourth location, a lounge that never got off the ground.
Mr. Qirollari donated $2,100 to Mr. Adams’s campaign in March, as did Anel Kolenovic, who oversees security for the dispensary. A lawyer who previously represented Sweetlife said Anel Kolenovic was not related to Adis Kolenovic, the dispensary owner.
After making his fund-raising pitch to the crowd on Thursday, Mr. Adams walked over to the dispensary, with Ms. Ranocchia and Anel Kolenovic following closely behind. Around 7:30 p.m., about 45 minutes after his arrival, the mayor climbed into the back seat of his official S.U.V. and rode away.
It was not the first time that Mr. Adams has made an appearance tied to an unlicensed dispensary. In 2023, he attended a turkey drive sponsored by Empire Cannabis Clubs, a chain of unlicensed dispensaries, and posed for a photo with the company’s team.
The sheriff raided the clubs last August. The owners have sued the city and the state over the enforcement. A hearing in the case is scheduled for May 1. The clubs continue to make deliveries.
Kitty Bennett and Susan C. Beachy contributed research.
Ashley Southall writes about cannabis legalization in New York.
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