New York City’s sad transformation from America’s premier city into a crime-ridden dystopian hellhole has made the Big Apple into a potentially dangerous vacation destination, but tourists are also being turned off by the overwhelming stench of marijuana smoke in the air.
Permissive policies by progressive politicians have emboldened potheads to light up in public practically everywhere and not even the city’s high-end retail shopping outlets like Saks Fifth Avenue are a refuge from the pungent aroma of dope smoke.
“It’s jarring when you walk into a high-end department store where you used to smell Chanel perfume and now it’s weed,” an anonymous stylist recently told the New York Post which featured Gotham’s “Reeker Madness” on the cover of Friday’s edition.
Today’s cover: Brazen NYers are smoking weed everywhere—Saks, subway, US Open https://t.co/iZcqUErgvk pic.twitter.com/dl24pEWwI3
— New York Post (@nypost) September 1, 2023
“Everywhere you go in New York City smells like weed. It’s not just Saks — it’s at Bloomingdales, at the movies … there’s no high-end anymore,” she said.
People were even smoking weed at this week’s US Open tennis matches at Flushing Meadows in Queens, the aroma of which was distracting to Greek player Maria Sakkari who lost in the first round, telling reporters that there was something in the air.
“It was weed,” she said. “The smell, oh, my gosh.”
Another player, German star Alexander Zverev said, “Court 17 definitely smells like Snoop Dogg’s living room.”
“Ever since NYC reopened to international tourists, put-off visitors have commented on our putrid fragrance. They’d grown accustomed to our summers of roasting garbage, but it’s the pot smoke that makes them dry heave,” wrote New York Post columnist Johnny Oleksinski of the city’s pervasive cloud of ganja smoke.
The columnist recalled a recent visit from a British friend who remarked, “The magic is gone,” expressing dismay over the presence of drugs in Times Square and the unpleasant odor of the dope cloud. “It’s an aroma that keeps me absent from the city,” he said.
Last July, when addressing reporters on the suffocating summer stench of rancid garbage, New York City Mayor Eric Adams attributed at least some of what the New York Post described as the “foulest odors imaginable” to public use of the hippie lettuce.
(Video: YouTube/NBC New York)
“The No. 1 thing I smell right now is pot. It’s like everybody’s smoking a joint now,” Hizzoner said with a laugh. “You know, everybody has a joint.”
Marijuana has been legal in the state of New York since 2021, although smoking or vaping isn’t permitted in public indoor spaces as well as other areas including, parks, beaches and boardwalks, public golf courses, and inside sports stadiums and arenas. But the low potential fine of $50 isn’t much of a deterrent.
“A woman was smoking marijuana on the G train on Saturday and nobody told her to stop. She had the vibe of, ‘I do whatever I want,’” an anonymous 38-year-old Brooklynite said, telling the New York Post that he didn’t say anything because “I don’t want to get stabbed.”
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Chris Donaldson is an ordinary American who is concerned about rampant corruption as well as the ongoing attacks on our way of life by those who have contempt for our hard-earned freedoms. A Navy veteran, he has been a frequent contributor to conservative websites and resides in Florida.
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