Two smoke shops robbed in Brooklyn Heights, and not for the first time

Cannabis-related crimes on the rise

March 7, 2024 Mary Frost

The Exotic Smoke Shop at 64 Henry St. in Brooklyn Heights was robbed for the third time on Feb. 26. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

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BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Two smoke shops in Brooklyn Heights were recently robbed, adding to the stats of soaring cannabis-related crime in New York City.

The Exotic Smoke Shop, at 64 Henry St. in the North Heights, was robbed at about 12:27 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 26, police said on Wednesday. According to the NYPD report, two unidentified men entered the store, which sells cannabis-related products, and ordered a 22-year-old male employee to move away from the register. The employee locked himself in a storage room in the rear of the store and the robbers removed approximately $670 worth of merchandise.

Police are looking for these two suspects in connection with the robbery of the Exotic Smoke Shop at 64 Henry St. in Brooklyn Heights on Feb. 26. Photos: NYPD

The rogue weed shop has been robbed several times in the past, including on April 15, 2023, at 8:50 p.m. The business has a long history of complaints, violations, fines and cannabis seizures by the city, but continues to operate. On Sept. 27, 2023, police seized several bags of illegal cannabis products from the unlicensed shop. It was their second raid there that month.

The suspects in Monday’s robbery were described as having dark complexions. One was wearing a white T-shirt, black pants and black mask. The other was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, black vest and sunglasses.

An Exotic Smoke Shop employee told the Brooklyn Eagle on Thursday that he was unsure about what day the latest robbery occurred, or if he was the one who locked himself in the storage room.

The front window and glass door of the Love Joy Convenience shop at 109 Atlantic Ave. were smashed by burglars on March 2. The store remained boarded up on Tuesday. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

Atlantic Avenue smash and grab

In another incident, four people used a hammer to burgle a smoke shop on Atlantic Avenue near Henry Street in the South Heights in the early morning hours on Saturday, March 2, police said.

At about 6:36 a.m., a woman approached Love Joy Convenience Shop at 109 Atlantic Ave. and smashed the front window and glass door with a hammer. The woman and a man then grabbed a quantity of merchandise, police said. Two additional men acted as lookouts during the burglary. The crew then fled on foot westbound on Atlantic Avenue toward Hicks Street with the stolen merchandise.

On Tuesday, the shop, which sells cannabis-related merchandise, remained closed, its storefront completely boarded up. Just a couple of doors to the west, however, another smoke shop was open for business.

Smoke shop robberies up

Smoke shop robberies in New York City quadruppled between the first and second years of cannabis legalization in New York State, NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell testified at a City Council hearing in January, THE CITY reported on Jan. 18.

Chell said that 593 smoke-shop robberies took place in 2022, when the city estimated there were 1,400 illegal weed shops — up from 137 in 2021. NYPD reported 428 robberies in Brooklyn, 373 in Manhattan, 226 in Queens, 204 in The Bronx and 90 on Staten Island during that time period. The 2023 figures were not reported.

“We’re seeing far too many illegal shops opening because the Police Department, the sheriff, we do not have the local authority to immediately close down these locations,” Mayor Eric Adams told Andrew Ross Sorkin in a March 1 interview on CNBC’s “SquawkBox.

Adams added, “Number one, in Albany right now, we have been having conversations with the governor, she introduced it into our budget. We just need local authority to go in, do inspections. Right now our police department cannot go in and do inspection for marijuana. We need to change that. We need to be able to go after those landlords that intentionally rent or lease their locations to people who are selling illegal marijuana. Give us the authority to do so and we’ll clean this mess up.”

Surveillance photos of the four suspects in the burglary of the Love Joy Convenience shop at 109 Atlantic Ave. Photos: NYPD

On Feb. 29, the mayor celebrated the grand opening of Park Slope’s Matawana Dispensary, the first Black woman-owned legal cannabis dispensary in Brooklyn.

There are currently 78 legal adult recreational cannabis shops in the entire state, with six in Brooklyn, according to NYS Office of Cannabis Management. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal outlets.