Oops!! New York judge rules city’s cannabis crackdown unconstitutional | Cannabis Law Report | How to buy Skittles Moonrock online

A New York state judge on Tuesday ruled that New York City’s hard-hitting Operation Padlock to Protect – which has shuttered more than 1,000 unlicensed cannabis retailers in the Big Apple – is unconstitutional because the underlying city code gave too much discretion to the sheriff, who was found to have ignored a hearing officer’s recommendation to allow one such shop to reopen.

Queens County Superior Court Justice Kevin J. Kerrigan wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday that New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda went too far in the case of Cloud Corner, a shop in Queens that was raided and shut down in September.

Miranda overrode a formal recommendation from an officer at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) that the closure of Cloud Corner – which is formally registered as A S A 456 Corp. – was not appropriate because the raid had taken place while the shop was not open for business, Kerrigan wrote. That was all the hearing officer needed to dismiss a formal summons against Cloud Corner and to let the store reopen, the judge noted.

After Miranda ignored the OATH recommendation and issued a year-long “final decision on an order of closure” last month, Cloud Corner filed suit in October and requested a temporary restraining order against the city.

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