NYPD Auxiliary Officers Undercover Sting Makes 3 Marijuana Buys At Roosevelt Island Main Street Smoke Shop Earlier This Summer - One Month Later Smoke Shop Is Closed

 Reported last August 17 that the Roosevelt Island Smoke Shop on Main Street:

... packed up and moved out last night....

which was confirmed by Main Street retail master leaseholder Hudson Related:

Confirmed!

The tenant and Hudson Related came to an agreement where they surrendered the space. We are working on a new concept and hope to share more information soon. We are glad to put this behind us and look forward to bringing a quality tenant and use to the island.

We learned more about the circumstances surrounding the removal of the Smoke Shop from Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Public Safety Chief Kevin Brown during the September 19 RIOC Public Safety Community Engagement meeting. According to Chief Brown, the process of removing the Smoke Shop began during the June 13 RIOC PSD Community Engagement meeting when NYPD 114 precinct Lieutenant Dickson learned of the problems at the smoke shop from Roosevelt Island community members. Chief Brown reported:

We had a number of community complaints about the smoke shop that was right across the street from Public Safety. These smoke shops have popped up all over the city.  They are a nuisance. Ours is gone....

And this why... community pressure ... NYPD played an instrumental role and I can tell you how. The Lieutenant was here that night and he heard a lot of the community complaints. There is s a program, and it's not a secret, but there is a program in NYPD where they have undercover auxiliary officers who are under the age of 21. They go into these smoke shops. They make buys. They were they were selling marijuana in the smoke shop.

... Then there's a process where the City then evicts them from their storefront. When the lieutenant was here, we went to the top of their list and he took care of that in one month. He made three buys in the location they were served and then they were gone.

That's how these community meeting are very, very helpful. That we can hear you. We hear your voice. We want to make sure that we're going to keep our place a very very safe place in New York City...

Here's what Chief Brown said.