Green Market Report
A New York state judge has thrown out enforcement orders by the New York City Sheriff against two hemp shops, sending a second legal signal that the crackdown by authorities may have legally overstepped.
Judge Arthur F. Engoron sided with the two hemp shops on Monday against Sheriff Anthony Miranda’s office and signed a temporary restraining order that forces authorities to remove signs that had been plastered on the front of the two shops that read “illicit cannabis seized” and let them reopen for business, the Albany Times Union reported.
The two stores in Manhattan are represented by Joshua Bauchner, who has filed several such lawsuits over the crackdown, alleging that many law-abiding retailers have been wrongly targeted.
“As our challenges are now subject to judicial review having exhausted administrative remedies, the courts are confirming what we have been arguing in Albany – this all is unconstitutional and needs to stop,” Bauchner told the Times Union.
The court order comes on the heels of another New York state ruling by a different judge in a separate case, which found that the same crackdown – called Operation Padlock in New York City – was unconstitutional because of how much power it granted the sheriff to bypass due process for shop owners. Bauchner said that the shop in that case was reopened last week following the ruling against the sheriff, the Times Union reported.
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