February 11, 2023

Metro exclusive
what to shop now

Illegal marijuana store prospers

across the street from City Hall
By Rich Calder and Matthew Sedacca February 11, 2023 9:49am Updated

This Samsung Frame TV is at the

lowest price we've ever seen, $1,000
off today on Amazon

Don't snooze on these incredible

mattress savings for Presidents Day
2023

TGIF: celebrate Flash Deal Fridays

today with huge savings from Wayfair

The 12 best brands that offer machine

washable rugs for a quick clean

Amazon just slashed the price of this

15-piece knife set over 60%

Trending Now
on NYPost.com

198,059

Jungle Boys has been selling illegal cannabis products across the street from City Hall.
J.C. Rice

An unlicensed Big Apple weed shop is blowing off authorities

More On:
marijuana
legalization
Illegal NYC marijuana shops
running amok thanks to lax
enforcement laws
Fuming Manhattan DA vows to
evict illegal pot shops
Redditor with weed-smoking
roommate is trolled for seeking
help
Hochul accused of double
standard for banning flavored
cigs but not cannabis
and brazenly keeping the good times — and joints — rolling,
John Cena spotted rocking short skirt,
right under City Hall’s nose. thigh-highs and heels
Jungle Boys smugly operates out of the landmarked
191,546
Broadway building that’s also home to some of Mayor Eric
Adams’ staff and various city agencies — and just 115 feet
away from the august epicenter of New York City
government.
“I’m aware we’re selling to them, City Hall people,” shrugged
Jungle Boys employee Edward Nunez Lopez, who wouldn’t
reveal any bold-faced names. Starbucks charges couple $4K for
coffee — forcing them to cancel family
The shop has enjoyed brisk business — even after a pair of trip
inconvenient police raids that had little lasting effect — since
its opening in the fall, Lopez said. 182,025

“Everybody who’s in the building comes here. Everybody!

People that don’t smoke – they do edibles. People that don’t do edibles – they do chocolates,” he
continued.

Mom fuming as daughter, 13, gets

chest binder at school — and is urged
not to tell parents

Columnists

Steve Cuozzo

Hey, Bret Easton Ellis: You don't have

the right to complain about NYC

Nicole Gelinas

Why NYC's new vice economy —

weed, casinos — might be doomed

See All Columnists

Page Six Style

A Jungle Boys employee claimed government staffers frequent the unlicensed pot shop. All the celebrities at
NYFW February
J.C. Rice 2023: Emily
Ratajkowski, Ashley
The pot emporium at 253 Broadway — also located next door to a government office building used by the Park, more
City Council and state legislators — has been able to remain in business because the state never All the Grammys
implemented strict enforcement rules for the future retail market when legalizing recreational weed in 2023 outfits you
missed: Harry Styles,
2021, critics say. Beyoncé, more
“I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry,” said Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn), one of many The best Grammys
predominantly progressive pols who supported legalizing marijuana but are now fuming over the lax 2023 afterparty
outfits: Olivia
enforcement of illegal dispensaries. Rodrigo, Megan Fox,
more
“An illegal weed store operating freely across the street from the seat of New York City government just
proves how ridiculous this whole thing has become,” he added.
Now on

Lindsay Hubbard, Carl Radke agree

wedding planning ‘f–king sucks’

Famed NYC eatery Rao’s takes over

Old Town mainstay for Super Bowl
2023

New mom Paris Hilton performs ‘Stars

Are Blind’ at 2023 Super Bowl bash

See All

Video
Josh Hart: Is he the answer to the
Knicks' Struggles?

Jungle Boys (lower right) operates out of the same building that houses some of Mayor Eric Adams’ staff and various city
agencies.
J.C. Rice

And it shows just how much anything goes nowadays in NYC, said Tom Chzyk, 62, a construction site
administrator.

“There’s a certain irony that City Hall is . . . across the street from it,” he said. “It’s a bizarre wacky place,
and we’ll just tolerate some things.”

Jungle Boys – which is not affiliated to a prosperous cannabis dispensary under the same name legally
operating out of Los Angeles – boasts a wide assortment of marijuana products to smoke and eat as well
as $100 bongs and other stoner favorites.

Edward Nunez Lopez sells weed-infused edibles and other products at Jungle Boys.
J.C. Rice

A city-state task force comprised of city deputy sheriffs, NYPD cops and staffers from other agencies
raided the joint in both December and January, seizing a combined $175,883 in products, officials said.

Jungle Boys also faces yet-to-be-determined fines after being socked with a bevy of criminal and civil
summonses for unlawful possession of cannabis, operating without a license and other wrongdoing,
officials said.
Like most of the other roughly 1,400 illegal cannabis shops operating citywide, Jungle Boys’ operators
were undeterred.

Jungle Boys has had more than $175,000 in products seized in recent raids.
J.C. Rice

It restocked the shelves and re-opened Monday without a hitch two weeks after the Jan. 26 inspection by
the task force — simply chalking it up to the cost of doing business in the high-profit world of weed,
workers said.

City Sheriff Anthony Miranda and NYPD brass testified at a Council hearing last month that existing laws
make it difficult to weed out and close the illicit weed shops, adding they can typically only issue measly
$250 fines – hardly a deterrent even after seizing pot and edibles.

Just two cannabis shops are legally operating in New York City — with a third slated to open Monday in
Manhattan’s Union Square — as a huge unregulated black market sprouted during the state’s slow rollout
of its licensed cannabis program.

The current laws for the retail weed market make it difficult to shut down illicit pot shops long-term.
J.C. Rice

In a bid to fight back, Mayor Adams and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Tuesday that
the city would be beefing up its crackdown on the illegal pot stores — by going after the landlords.

The typically soft-on-crime Bragg said his office sent more than 400 letters to property owners of
unlicensed shops putting them on notice to evict tenants selling illegal cannabis — or watch the state do it

for them.

Michael Alcazar, an adjunct criminal justice professor at John Jay College and retired NYPD detective,
said it’s no surprise that the shop opened across from City Hall, considering “the lawlessness plaguing”
New York.

DA Alvin Bragg sent 400 letters to property landlords warning them of potential evictions for tenants who illegally sell
weed.
J.C. RIce
“This is a direct slap in the mayor’s face and state legislators that made this environment friendly for pot
dealers,” he said. “The message is loud and clear: New York City has become the Wild Wild West!”

The 19th century-era, landmarked former Home Life Insurance Company building at 253 Broadway is
now a condominium complex predominantly owned by the city, but the lower level where Jungle Boys is
located is owned by a Mineola, N.Y.-based real estate management company, Malachite Group. The
company declined comment.

The Mayor’s Office declined to address questions about the illegal pot dispensary making plenty of green
so close to City Hall, instead referring to Adams’ comments Tuesday where he promised to bank on
“every level of government to address” the problem of rogue weed shops.

56 What do you think? Post a comment.

Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Gov. Hocul, said the state is “using every tool at our disposal
to crack down on unlawful operations and keep New Yorkers safe.”

However, some New Yorkers — including city employees who walk by Jungle Boys regularly — say
current “crackdown” efforts just aren’t working.

“It’s ugly there,” fumed Daniel Suarez, an employee at the city Department of Citywide Administrative
Services. “Especially when tourists come. They are seeing City Hall — and then this!”

Filed under alvin bragg cannabis city council city hall eric adams marijuana
marijuana legalization mayor small business 2/11/23

Read Next Can I get a 'lay'? 'Drunk' woman allegedly asked to lay on...

Conversation 56 Comments 124 Viewing

Share your stance. Please adhere to our guidelines .

Sort by Best
1 View 1 new comment

1 Person typing

Billy Kidd
3 hours ago

City Hall is the shops primary customer

Reply 22 Share

Big Jake
4 hours ago

Just between us, what is the mayor’s favorite brand?

Reply 15 Share

LM2
3 hours ago

It's in the same building as his staff, because they're the best customers.

Reply 6 Share

AJ XYZ
3 hours ago

Ostentatious Extravagance At Your Expense

Reply 6 Share
Show 4 more replies

Graniteville
3 hours ago

253 Broadway is also within a few hundred feet of several schools. Coincidence?

Reply 9 Share

Seriously?
2 hours ago

There are also bars near there. Do you have a point?

Reply 2 Share
2 replies

Bluzyhound
2 hours ago
The only problem they have with it is they aren’t getting paid. Remuneration of taxes is all they
are about not the health and well being if their constituents. They have commercials of people
emphysema on TV promoting the cessation of smoking at the same time they are
smoking mari... See more
Reply 7 Share
1 reply

GEMforCommonSense
3 hours ago
Here's a solution: Layoff the 6-figure salaried government employees in the NYS Office of
annabis Management (or shut it down), and all NYS & NYC government 6-figure salaried DIE
close the legal weed dispensaries, which are all operated by incompetent, taxpayer-sucking
lobbyist orgs (e....

See more
Reply 12 Share

Punch Top
4 hours ago

Mayor Bojangles too busy getting to the club to get this done

Reply 11 Share

Adam Wolf
2 hours ago
legal weed 50 dollars
illegal weed 20 dollars
see the problem
(same size & quality)
Reply 8 Share

Julyfourth
3 hours ago

If they sold Crack Hunter Biden would be a very frequent customer and maybe sell some of his
there or trade it for top shelf Crack.

Reply 6 Share
1 reply

Baby Boomer
3 hours ago

Politicians want us dumb, high and relying on their petty handouts to survive.

Sadly, half of Americans are ok with it.

Reply 8 Share
1 reply

CP
2 hours ago

Why is it that bars have the fear of god in them if they open up without a coveted and expensive
license? What a massive failure.

Reply 3 Share

Vazeesh Maharaj
1 hour ago

Dunhill, Nat Sherman, Benson & Hedges gave way to Gummies for Bummies

Reply 2 Share

Nota Bot
3 hours ago

The city turns a blind eye to the street pot dealers for years and goes full on holier than tho
they open a store front.

Reply 4 Share

LM2
3 hours ago

Coming next week, illegal gun store right next door.

Reply 3 Share
1 reply

Ben David
3 hours ago

Mayor and his staff dont wanna have to go so far to get their 'lunch'.

Reply 3 Share

Grossss
3 hours ago

What's the problem? It's an illegal store, put a freaking lock on the door n a cop out front.

Reply 5 Share
1 reply

Lilly Skywalker
2 hours ago

New York is a Wasteland and even Snake Plissken won't go there!

Reply 4 Share

rose tomas
3 hours ago
NYC needs the fines so let the good times roll
Reply 2 Share
 Blackspeare
2 hours ago

And it cheaper than the licensed weed shops!!

Reply 1 Share

jon jon
1 hour ago

Lawlessness its what democrats excel at.

Reply 2 Share

DeadPool
3 hours ago

Glad to see that ADAMS is on top of things lol maybe if it was a CELEBRITY Party across from
HALL he would have never MISSED IT !!!!

Reply 1 Share

Assy_McGee
1 hour ago

Adams, the corrupt bishop and the flashy pimp all take weed breaks at the shop.

Reply 3 Share

obama's knee dummy

53 minutes ago

These places are blatant. There is absolutely no regulation of the products they sell, and while a
ot of it is probably cannabis, there is too much fentanyl floating around and unscrupulous
looking to cut cost by cutting the product

An old story......

Reply Share

Mark
2 hours ago

All thanks to the good for nothing NYPD…

Reply 2 Share

KYOTE
6 minutes ago

Governments & big money bankers have been in the drug business for decades. You just have
cut them in on the profits to be allowed to participate.

Reply Share

Papa Smurf
1 hour ago

Btw, CL has been selling weed since 2010, and it’s tax free

Reply 1 Share
1 reply

MrFatBear
2 hours ago
For crying out loud, just make it legal! With the same restrictions as alcohol. Stop wasting
time.
Reply Share
1 reply

Jack Ricardo
53 minutes ago

I am more concerned about legal pot shops than illegal ones. Heavy marijuana use causes brain
-- something our already witless society cannot afford.

Reply Share
1 reply

Show More Comments

Powered by Terms Privacy Feedback

8 People Reacted

What's your reaction to this

article?

Top Notch So-so Next!

25 7 0
More Stories
Page Six NYPost

Machine Gun Kelly gets electrocuted during Super John Cena spotted rocking short skirt, thigh-highs
Bowl performance and heels

Sections & Features Post Sports+ Newsletters & Feeds Help/Support Apps

News Metro Subscribe Email Newsletters About New York Post iPhone App
Sports Sports Betting Articles RSS Feeds Customer Service iPad App
Business Opinion Manage NY Post Official Store App FAQ & Help Android Phone
Entertainment Fashion & Beauty Community Guidelines Android Tablet
Home Delivery
Shopping Lifestyle
Contact Us Advertise
Real Estate Media Subscribe
Tech Health Manage Subscription Tips Self Service
Travel Astrology Newsroom Media Kit
Video Photos Delivery Help Letters to the Editor Contact
Visual Stories Alexa Reprints
Covers Horoscopes Careers
Sports Odds Podcasts Vulnerability Disclosure Program
Columnists Classifieds

© 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved Terms of Use Membership Terms Privacy Notice Sitemap
Your California Privacy Rights