What to Know
- The owner of a CBD shop in Brooklyn is worried that a $20,000 NYPD mix-up that lead to charges will force his business to close
- Oren Levy's brother was arrested after the NYPD thought it made a big drug bust, but the Brooklyn DA said it planned to drop all charges
- The charges have not been dropped yet, and Levy isn’t sure if his business can survive until the next hearing, in May 2020
The owner of a CBD shop in Brooklyn is worried that a $20,000 NYPD mix-up that lead to charges will force his business to close.
Oren Levy runs Green Angel CDB, which he says is frequented by “people with cancer, people with autism, people with arthritis, people recovering from opioid abuse.”
He gets the hemp he needs to make the products from a farm in Vermont, but the latest shipment in November was intercepted by the NYPD’s 75th precinct — who believed they just had a major, 106-pound marijuana bust.
The hemp looks and smells just like weed, the only difference being the lack of THC — the chemical present in weed (but not hemp) that gets users high.
Oren’s brother went to the precinct to clear everything up, but instead was arrested and now faces felony charges.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office told NBC New York it planned to drop all charges against him, but that hasn’t happened yet. The brothers expected the charges to be dropped this week at a court hearing, but were left disappointed.
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“We went into the courtroom and what they did is they gave us another court date, May 29, 2020,” said Oren Levy.
Meanwhile, Levy isn’t sure if his business can survive that long. He said he has already borrowed money from family members “to stay afloat” as the hemp seized was worth $20,000, but worries the arrest and the entire ongoing incident with shut him down completely.
“I lost buyers, I lost suppliers, my brother’s not sleeping at night, I’m not sleeping at night, I lost over 10 pounds since this whole situation happened,” Levy said.
