The Binghamton City Council is expected to vote this week on legislation targeting the illicit sale of cannabis products.

Last October, Mayor Jared Kraham proposed a new law empowering the city’s police department to inspect businesses suspected of illegally selling cannabis. The council’s Municipal and Public Affairs Committee met on March 11 to discuss the legislation, which Kraham said would protect city residents by preventing unlicensed establishments from distributing potentially harmful products and selling to minors.

At the beginning of the meeting, he said that local authorities can regulate unlicensed cannabis in accordance with state law and that local governments can respond more effectively to unlicensed cannabis activity.

“Office of Cannabis Management has enforcement divisions, and the governor has been trying to add to their enforcement capabilities,” he said. “But the bottom line is that it’s a very large state, and they are going to be stretched very, very thin. And while they have had activity here in the Binghamton area, it will be ultimately the local levels of government that are going to be closest to the issue and can respond most efficiently and effectively to complaints of unlicensed cannabis activity.”

Councilmembers Kinya Middleton, Hadassah Mativetsky ‘07, MS ‘12 and Nate Hotchkiss ‘12, who is not on the committee, all attended the meeting. Damien Cornwell, the owner of Just Breathe, a licensed cannabis dispensary in Downtown Binghamton, was also present.

Cannabis was legalized for recreational adult use statewide in 2021. The Office of Cannabis Management promotes the licensing of businesses and “individuals from communities disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition policies, minority and women owned businesses, distressed farmers, and service-disabled veterans.” State taxes paid by customers and licensed retailers shops are used to fund “public education, drug treatment programs, and community reinvestment,” according to an office flyer.

“These unlicensed shops do not provide any tax revenue to the city of Binghamton or Broome County or the state of New York, and we have to keep that in mind as well,” Kraham said. “These places are making a lot of money from these, and it’s stealing from the taxpayers.”

“It is in our best interest to have local control to shut these places down, to both improve public health but also to support our legal businesses that have gone through a very, very difficult process to obtain a license,” he continued.

Cornwell spoke about his experience obtaining a state license for Just Breathe, the first licensed dispensary in upstate New York, with the intention of using the emerging cannabis industry to positively impact the community. He worked for nonprofit organizations in the past and applied for a license with help from the Broome County Urban League, a nonprofit founded in 1968 that empowers minorities and the impoverished.

He said state-licensed shops must operate under certain guidelines, including regulations on how shops should advertise to avoid attracting minors, which unlicensed shops are not required to follow.

“I want to be very clear: This is not really a discussion of unregulated versus regulated but more a discussion of equity,” Cornwell said. “How would it impact our communities if I pulled back the half a million dollars I gave in taxes the last two years? And if that were the case, why is it any more fair for you to make more money than we do, not invest it in your community, your daycares, your Urban Leagues, your vet programs, your single-parent households, which we’ve done, and continue to pocket that money and go for it without any obligation to what it was designed to do — which was help our communities.”

While unlicensed shops are illegal, they are often difficult to close in practice. In her 2025 state budget, Gov. Kathy Hochul offered new steps toward closing unlicensed shops by allowing local authorities to enforce state cannabis laws, establishing stricter laws against landlords who house these operations, and closing illicit cannabis storefronts that violate certain health and safety rules.

Kraham said is hard to regulate these shops using the lockdown laws as these cases require larger narcotics investigations, which are often not the most effective strategy when targeting local shops. Many of these stores continue to sell unlicensed due to the greater profit margin, even after the state informs them that their businesses are illegal.

The city has also addressed sticker shops and other businesses that sell large amounts of untested cannabis.

Middleton said that these unlicensed shops could pose a threat to public safety and are often targets for robberies. She added that they take money away from the state that can be put back into local communities while harming licensed businesses in the area.

The council is set to vote on the legislation at its upcoming meeting on Wednesday, March 26.