Inspectors from the New York City Department of Health shut down Sweetooth on Monday, the Upper East Side bakeshop selling unlicensed THC-infused products from a hot pink storefront in Yorkville, ordering the business to close following another visit by the citywide Cannabis Task Force, which resulted in nearly a dozen garbage bags filled with unlicensed cannabis products from the bakery.
“Closed by order of the Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene for operating without a permit,” reads the white notice glued to the front of Sweetooth, located at 1662 First Avenue, between East 86th and 87th Streets.
Health Department inspectors spent nearly two hours combing through Sweetooth’s refrigerated display cases, checking all the adulterated food products before a Sheriff’s deputy stuffed the dozens of plastic containers filled with fresh cupcakes and cookies and spiked sodas into a clear garbage bag.
Sweetooth received six violations from the Health Department on Monday, including three summons for contaminates food, two for lack of labelling, and one for operating without a permit, officials tell Upper East Site.
ALSO READ | Crumbling UES Parking Garage Shuttered Weeks After Deadly Collapse Downtown
Before the Health Department’s arrival, the Cannabis Task Force team, comprised of members of the NYC Sheriff, NYPD, Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and New York State Office of Cannabis Management, meticulously examined Sweetooth’s retail space, bagging up row after row of pre-packaged edibles and other THC products, loading them into a large black sprinter van.
Officials say 282 THC vape cartridges, 487 pre-rolls, 825 packages of THC edibles seized, in addition to all the various cannabis-infused foods and drinks.
NYPD officers handcuffed Sweetooth’s clerk, later identified by officials as the business owner, and brought him to a waiting patrol car on a misdemeanor charge of Possession of Cannabis in the Third Degree. The Task Force cited the business for three additional violations, slapping the bakery with fines totaling $13,100.
On Monday afternoon, one woman walking past the infused bakery with her teenage daughter stopped to ask the officers whether they were shutting down Sweetooth. She thanked them for closing the bakeshop, telling them she was “sick of these places.”
Upon learning of Sweetooth’s shutdown, another passerby shouted, “About time!”
Two other smoke shops selling unlicensed cannabis products on the block — one two doors down from Sweetooth, the other directly across First Avenue — hastily closed their doors the day following the arrival of police. In their rush to shut down and avoid a run-in with the Cannabis Task Force members, both stores clerks forgot to turn off the neon ‘Open’ sign in the window.
“Mayor Adams has been clear: We will not let the economic opportunities that legal cannabis offers be taken for a ride by unlicensed establishments,” a City Hall spokesperson told Upper East Site, “The shutdown of this unlawfully-operating bakery is a testament to the strong work of our interagency task force, which is doing everything in its power to hold unlicensed establishments selling cannabis, cannabis-infused edibles, illegal vaping products, illegal cigarettes, and other illegal tobacco products accountable.”
“No illegal business operation will be tolerated — especially those that are threatening the health and safety of our communities — and we will not hesitate to take all necessary enforcement action against any other storefronts behaving in a similar manner,” the City Hall spokesperson added.
Sweetooth was one of two unlicensed Upper East Side cannabis businesses targeted by the Task Force on Monday.
Investigators first targeted Yorkville Convenience, a smoke shop with shiny marijuana leaf shape balloons and bongs in its windows at 1443 York Avenue, across the street from Yorkville East Middle School and the Bayard Taylor School.
A witness tells Upper East Site that the Task Force spent more than an hour bagging all the illicit products in the store.
Sweetooth and Yorkville Convenience were recently the targets of a crackdown by the DCWP on unlicensed tobacco and electronic cigarette sales, slapping the businesses with a combined 58 violations, the majority issued to the latter.
ALSO READ | Barefoot Maniac in Ski Mask Assaults Teen During UES Robbery
Upper East Site reached out to Sweetooth for comment on Monday’s enforcement action by the citywide Cannabis Task Force and was told in a statement, “They loved our products so much, they just had to take it all!”
Sweetooth reopened Wednesday afternoon in defiance of closure orders to give away free pre-rolled joints and snacks infused with 30 mg of THC. The bakeshop is telling customers it plans to resume sales on Friday.
