New York City pop-up shops have been appearing on Broadway in trendy NoMad and farther north in Times Square, creating problems for established brick-and-mortar businesses.
Why? Because these new “shops” are in the business of selling drugs — marijuana and cocaine, specifically.
The New York Post revealed that some of the drug-slingers openly solicit, saying, “Weed, coke. Weed, coke” as pedestrians walk by.
Dealers sit along the sidewalk, their product arranged on a table for easy viewing, as if it were knockoff apparel.
These types of exchanges have almost always been present, but locals are shocked at the audacity of openly selling drugs like candy bars.
A NoMad resident said, “It’s like so brazen, I couldn’t believe it.” He added that they saw someone “sitting up against the store, has a huge plate of loose marijuana and is packaging it into individual baggies.”
He claims to have notified a police officer who “just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ ”
Hannah Dolin works at Aubi and Ramsa, an alcohol-infused ice cream shop in the area. She explained, “They’re here before we open and when we close.”
The drug peddlers quickly scoop up their things and flee when police happen to come around.
An NYPD spokesperson said the precinct’s commanding officer is “aware of the condition at the location and has been working with precinct personnel to address it.”