POWER CORNER How Kathryn Garcia manages New York’s affairs
CRAINSNEWYORK.COM
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PAGE 15
DELIVERY HUBS City finds new purpose for vacant newsstands PAGE 6
OCTOBER 10, 2022
POLITICS
SMOKE CITY, one of the smoke shops along Ninth Avenue
Hochul has signed just 57% of bills passed this year BY BRIAN PASCUS
W
RETAIL
BUCK ENNIS
WAITING FOR THE SMOKE TO CLEAR R Smoke shops pop up like weeds in the city as some owners anticipate licenses to legally sell cannabis BY NATALIE SACHMECHI
NEWSPAPER
VOL. 38, NO. 35
unning a local smoke shop is a good business, said Adeeb AlSaeidi, a partner at a family-run chain of about 25 in the city. “If we buy a bong for $10, we sell it for $60 or $70. Some bongs can sell for as much as $200,” said Al-Saeidi, whose stores sell e-cigarettes, smoking accessories and convenience items. “We started seeing money in it. It’s really good.” All around the city, smoke shops have been popping up like weeds, but not always
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CHASING GIANTS
LOCAL FIRM OFFERS GROWTH HACK FOR STARTUPS PAGE 3
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just to sell tobacco, bongs and other paraphernalia. Some retailers, unlike Al-Saeidi, hope to procure a coveted retail license to sell cannabis legally once they become widely available. For now, the first round of licenses will be awarded only to those who were previously convicted of marijuana-related crimes. The application window for those licenses closed last month, but the broader applicant pool hasn’t opened yet. See SMOKE on page 19
ith three months remaining until the end-of-theyear deadline, just under 440 bills are awaiting the governor’s signature. This year the state Senate and Assembly passed 1,007 bills, and the 2022 legislative session was among the most productive in recent memory. Both chambers set a modern-day record that exceeded the 984 they passed last year. Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed 569 bills this year. But still awaiting her signature as of press time was legislation touching on child care benefits, general contractor subsidies, pet-store sales and a temporary ban on BILLS SIGNED cryptomining. by Hochul so “I don’t jump far this year to conclusions. I in one of the do it based on most productive data,” Hochul legislative said when asked sessions about unsigned bills during a July 12 news conference. “We are focused on the ones that had to be dealt with immediately, and we’ve segregated out the ones that we have conversations about to get to the right decision that everybody’s going to be satisfied with.” Hochul notably signed legislation that creates the New York City Housing Authority Public Housing Preservation Trust and a bill to ease the conversion of city hotels into affordable housing units. From a percentage standpoint of bills signed, the governor is
569
See BILLS on page 22
WHO OWNS THE BLOCK
A reclusive downtown landlord emerges PAGE 4
10/7/22 4:36 PM