Sweetooth originally planned to reopen its Upper East Side bakeshop on Friday afternoon, promising to continue peddling its unlicensed THC-laced pastries despite orders to close down for operating without the proper permits and licenses. Officials thwarted those plans, closing the UES store a second time and shutting down Sweetooth’s two other downtown locations. However, the company says it will continue defying a cease-and-desist order.
Despite a handwritten note saying that Sweetooth would reopen Friday remaining on the front door, five bright yellow closure orders from the Health Department now dot the Upper East Side storefront, located at 1662 First Avenue, between East 86th and 87th Street.
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Next to the two notices glued to the front door is a copy of the Health Commissioner’s order describing the bakery’s operations as a ‘danger to public health.’
Upper East Site was there Monday as the Sheriff’s Joint Compliance Task Force — a team consisting of members of the NYPD, Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and New York State Office of Cannabis Management, Office of Tax Enforcement and NYC Department of Health — first shut down Sweetooth’s Upper East Side bakeshop for selling cannabis without the necessary OCM license and for selling food without the required permit and inspection from DOH.
Despite the owner’s arrest on a charge of Possession of Cannabis in the Third Degree on Monday, the seizure of hundreds of illicit products, and a $13,100 fine, Sweetooth promised on social media to give away pre-rolled joints and THC-infused snacks on Wednesday. Upper East Site observed Sweetooth doing just that.
The Health Department’s white closure order was scraped off their front door, and clerks provided guests with free cannabis products, informing them of their big reopening on Friday with a free gelato giveaway on Saturday.
In a statement to Upper East Site, Sweetooth taunted officials who had just shut down their illegitimate enterprise and seized their inventory, “They loved our products so much, they just had to take it all!”
Sweetooth’s announcement of its plans to defy the law both with a sign in its window and through its small following on social media likely armed the Joint Compliance Task Force with the information it needed to launch a broader crackdown on the company, swooping in on the chain’s East and West Village locations.
Clerks at both locations were arrested and charged with Possession of Cannabis in the Third Degree on Thursday, while the business received a combined $34,500 in fines. Neither store was operating with a permit to serve food.
In the East Village, authorities seized 1,348 edibles weighing nearly 142 pounds, 204 THC vape cartridges and pens, 290 pre-rolled joints and more than a pound and a half of bagged cannabis flower. The Task Force also seized all of Sweetooth’s infused pastries and drinks.
Over at the West Village store, investigators took 1,052 edibles weighing 105 pounds, 303 THC vapes, 97 pre-rolls, and all of Sweetooth’s ready-to-eat snacks and spiked sodas.
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“Our lawyer and team are working as fast as we can to have all proper food licensing and certificates hung before we go forward,” Sweetooth wrote in an Instagram post announcing the closure of all three bakeshops, adding, “Sweetooth will be back STRONGER than ever.”
In addition to the promise to return as a properly licensed business, Sweetooth took the opportunity to blame their closure not on their actions but on their neighbor, Padoca Bakery, which sits directly across the street from the illicit bakeshop on First Avenue.
“They called [the news] to say we ‘laced’ their workers with FREE GELATO,” Sweetooth claimed on Instagram in stories and comments likely to incite harassment, “I understand it’s tough looking across the street and to see we always have a line out the door but please just mind your business on your side of the street!”
“Padoca Bakery has recently received a slew of questions — some unfriendly — about our purported involvement in the shutdown of a local infused bakery,” the Brazilian bakery told Upper East Site in a statement.
“While we don’t see value in engaging in the hurtful back and forth we’ve seen [Friday] morning, we remain committed to protecting our team. We played no part in the series of events leading to the bakery’s shutdown and wish them the best of luck in reopening. We, too, have experienced the trials of owning a small business,” Padoca Bakery explained.
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In reality, Sweetooth was shut down by the Joint Compliance Task Force because it was operating an unlicensed cannabis business half a block from an Upper East Side school, as well as an unlicensed food business, then openly flouted the initial closure orders.
“[Sweetooth] must immediately cease and desist from further possession, distribution or sale at any time and in any medium of sales or distribution, including over the internet, of any products containing cannabinoids or cannabinoid products without written authorization from the NYS Office of Cannabis Management,” reads the Commissioner’s Order from the Department of Health taped to Sweetooth’s UES store.
On Friday, Sweetooth was busy telling customers on social media to send them their phone numbers or wait until their online ordering system for pickup and deliveries goes live on Monday — in defiance of the order cited above.
Upper East Site reached out to Sweetooth for comment but did not hear back by time of publication.
