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Syracuse, N.Y. — A retail shop in Syracuse accused of illegal marijuana sales has filed a lawsuit saying the city acted illegally when it ordered the business to shut down last month.
T’s Wireless, which is located in the Dey’s Centennial Building at 401 S. Salina St., was one of five business declared “unfit for human occupancy” last month by the city’s codes enforcement office. The city’s action came after the state Office of Cannabis Management and the state Department of Taxation and Finance inspected the shops and accused them of possessing illicit marijuana and/or selling it without proper licenses.
But the lawsuit filed Thursday in State Supreme Court said the city had no legal right to order the business to close.
The lawsuit says T’s Wireless is operating legally as a retailer of wireless communication products and clothing, and has a valid state license to sell certain CBD products, including edible items and drinks which are made from cannabis derived from hemp and have lower levels of THC than marijuana. The state licenses CBD/ hemp sales separately from marijuana sales.
The lawsuit names the city of Syracuse and city Codes Enforcement Director Jake Dishaw as defendants. The city only recently began using codes enforcement to shut down business cited by the state agencies for illegal marijuana sales. The city has been seeking ways to keep illicit weed shops from operating since the state legalized marijuana in 2021.
The lawsuit claims the city is overstepping its legal authority.
“The city’s improvisational use of code enforcement power as a means to ‘regulate’ the local cannabis market plainly violates state and local law,” the lawsuit states.
The suit seeks a restraining order lifting the shutdown action order and requests damages from the city for lost business. It claims the shop has already lost nearly $32,000 in revenues since the shutdown and risks losing at least another $54,000 in capital investments. It was filed on behalf of T’s Wireless owner Tarek Shehadeh by attorney Brady O’Malley of the Nave Law Firm.
City officials are reviewing the lawsuit, said Greg Loh the city’s chief policy officer.
The city’s actions, he said, are based on state and city codes, not cannabis law.
“The unlawful (unfit) declaration was issued under the New York State Property Maintenance Code for operating without a Certificate of Use to sell food or beverages,” Loh said in a statement. “It followed documented violation(s) at the location by New York State Tax and Finance and the Office of Cannabis Management.”
The T’s Wireless lawsuit further claims that Mayor Ben Walsh himself initiated the action against the shop.
“On Sept. 11 2023 Mayor Ben Walsh walked into T’s Wireless, quickly photographed three jars of hemp displayed on the front counter, and departed the store within 20 seconds of his arrival,” the lawsuit states.
“Almost 24 hours after Mayor Walsh’s ‘inspection,’ around 1 p.m. on Sept. 12, 2023, T’s Wireless was raided without a warrant or consent by armed agents of the New York State Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) and Department of Taxation and Finance (DTF) who collectively seized approximately $19,400 in T’s Wireless Property.”
The lawsuit goes on to say that OCM charged T’s Wireless with “unlicensed sale of certain cannabis and related products,” which the shop owner denies. But the suit contends OCM did not accuse the shop of violating its CBD license, or of doing anything that posed “a severe or imminent risk to public health, safety or welfare.”
The shop remained open until the city codes office declared it unfit for occupancy on Sept. 25, the lawsuit says. It has been closed since that date.
In an affidavit, Shehadeh claims that he confronted Dishaw, the codes officer, who told him the shut down had nothing to do with the state cannabis office.
O’Malley says in the lawsuit that the city’s action specifically violates a local law approved by the Common Council and signed by the mayor last year, which was intended to allow the city to go to court to shut down illegal marijuana shops.
“It is abundantly clear from Dishaw’s cavalier, inherently contradictory, and false bordering on delusional statements to local journalists, that he either cannot comprehend (the law passed in 2022) or chooses to simply disregard it along with the due process rights and livelihoods of city constituents like Tarek Shehadeh and his four employees.”
In addition to T’s Wireless, the shops shut down last month were:
- EXscape Exotic, a smoke shop and vape lounge, at 167 Marshall St.
- NY Exotic, a smoke shop, at 123 Marshall St.
- North Side Express, a convenience store, at 400 Wolf St.
- Smoke City 420, a smoke shop, at 1105 N. Salina St.
The September crackdown in Syracuse represented a new tactic in the city’s effort to contain the growth of illicit cannabis shops since New York state legalized adult-use cannabis in 2021. The state has been slow to roll out its own legal and licensed shops, called dispensaries, allowing a gray market to thrive.
In Syracuse, the city codes office has attempted to close about a dozen such shops in the past year or so, but often found that they just popped up again.
The state, meanwhile, only began conducting inspections to identify illegal sellers in the past few months. State officials say the goal is to protect the legal market, which they say offers higher quality, lab-tested and safe products.
Last month, Dishaw told syracuse.com that the state’s enforcement action now gives the city the legal authority to declare the locations “unfit for human occupancy. That means they can’t be used for any purpose until they work out a plan to be in legal compliance. They are also subject to fines.
“The difference now is that we are working together with the state agencies,” Dishaw said, comparing last month’s action to the city’s previous efforts. “Now the state can come in and find them in violation, and we can come back and since they are operating contrary to law, we can declare them unfit.”
Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.