On June 11, 2026, New York's Appellate Division, Third Department, reversed a preliminary injunction that had limited how the state and the New York City Sheriff could inspect licensed hemp shops. The unanimous decision in Matter of Super Smoke N Save LLC v New York State Cannabis Control Board (CV-25-0165) lets the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), the Cannabis Control Board and the Sheriff resume warrantless regulatory inspections of the retailers who sued.
How the case got to the appeals court
The petitioners hold Cannabinoid Hemp Retail Licenses, which allow sales of hemp products under 0.3 percent delta-9 THC. Bloomberg Law reported that five retailers sued after the Sheriff's Office seized their products. They argued that the inspections were really criminal searches without warrants, that officers went into nonpublic areas, and that the Sheriff had no authority to inspect licensed businesses at all.
Albany County Supreme Court Justice Thomas Marcelle agreed enough to grant a preliminary injunction on January 13, 2025, with a clarifying order on January 21, 2025. The injunction barred warrantless inspections of the petitioners' businesses, limited certain enforcement activity, and ordered removal of some violation notices and return of seized property. The state and the city appealed, and the Appellate Division temporarily stayed parts of the order while the appeal was pending. The court heard the case on April 29, 2026.
What the five-judge panel decided
Justice Justin Corcoran wrote the opinion, joined by Presiding Justice Clark and Justices Aarons, Pritzker and Mackey. The panel made four main findings.
The inspection scheme survives a facial challenge. The petitioners did not seriously dispute that cannabis is a closely regulated industry. The question was whether the law gives a constitutional substitute for a warrant. The court said the Cannabis Law and OCM's rules, taken together, do. Applicants consent to inspections as a condition of licensure. Inspections cover defined places, and going further requires probable cause. The rules do not let OCM break into locked areas; instead, licensees who refuse to cooperate face administrative penalties. Local inspections are limited to business hours and civil enforcement, and the statute lists what can be seized.
Case-specific complaints have to go through OCM first. Allegations about destroyed products, searches of back rooms and untrained officers were "as-applied" claims. The court said the retailers conceded they had not used OCM's administrative hearing process, so those claims were premature.
The Sheriff has authority. The lower court read the law to bar local officials from inspecting any business holding a state license. The panel disagreed, focusing on the word "applicable." A hemp license is not the applicable license for selling products that are legally cannabis. Local officials can inspect hemp retailers suspected of selling products over the THC limit for hemp.
The equities favor enforcement. The court found that "the public health and safety risks caused by the unlicensed sale of cannabis products outweigh any contingent injury claimed by petitioners."
The ruling also has a limit worth noting. The retailers raised only Fourth Amendment claims, not claims under the New York Constitution, which the court noted can protect more in search cases. The decision does not address that question.
Why it matters for New York's hemp shops
Hemp retail sits in an awkward spot in New York. Licensed hemp stores are legal, but regulators say some unlicensed and gray-market sellers use hemp branding as cover for high-THC products. The 2024 budget gave localities and the NYC Sheriff new inspection powers aimed at unlicensed cannabis sales, and this case tested how far those powers reach into licensed hemp businesses.
For hemp retailers, the practical takeaway is that surprise regulatory inspections are back, and disputes over how an inspection was carried out belong first in OCM's administrative hearing process. For consumers, nothing changes at the counter: a licensed hemp shop is not a licensed cannabis dispensary, and intoxicating products should come from licensed dispensaries that test and label them.
The decision also fits a wider enforcement push. The state has padlocked hundreds of illegal storefronts and passed a first-in-the-nation anti-inversion law.
Update: October 2026
The retailers' lawyer, Robert M. Marx, told Bloomberg Law that his clients would take the fight to the Court of Appeals, New York's top court. As of early October, High Today could not confirm whether a request for leave to appeal has been filed or decided. The ruling addressed only the preliminary injunction, so the underlying Article 78 case can continue in Albany County.
In Albany, a bill to write OCM's inspection procedures into state law, S9924 from Sen. Jeremy Cooney, was introduced in April 2026 partly in response to the injunction (Post-Journal). Its latest recorded action was a May 12 committee vote moving it to the Senate Codes Committee. Hemp sellers also face federal changes; see our explainer on the coming federal hemp THC ban.
For adults 21 and over. Not legal advice.