Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live On FOX5’s “Good Day New York”

July 18, 2024

Dan Bowens: A citywide campaign called Operation Padlock to Protect proves to be working.  

Rosanna Scotto: This week, over $1 million of illegal drugs, including marijuana, magic mushrooms, they were seized during a raid on a Bronx bodega. Joining us with more information on this from Gracie Mansion on the Upper East Side, Mayor Adams and New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda. Nice to have you both with us this morning. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you so much. Good to be here. 

Scotto: Mayor, obviously, since you got the permission from the state, New York City has been doing a heck of a job closing down these illegal weed shops. 

Mayor Adams: Yes, hats off to the sheriff and his team and his community. When you look at this shop in particular, it looks like a normal deli, a normal bodega where you go in and get a sandwich. In reality, it was more than selling cans of soda. It was selling cannabis. They were able to go in, partner with the community, and as you indicated, millions of dollars of illegal items were located in the back room. 

Scotto: Mayor, I don't know if you heard about this, but Councilwoman Gale Brewer wants to introduce a bill today that would require you to release quarterly reports on your cannabis enforcement activities. How do you feel about that? 

Mayor Adams: These agencies are regulated and have reporting requirements over and over again. I continue to say, let's let these folks focus on doing their jobs. Every time we add a new layer of reporting, we're taking people off of the actual goal of doing the job, and we can't be a clerical Sheriff Department. We must be a department that's going after closing down these shops, and they're doing a great job. Give us an opportunity to do so. 

Scotto: Do you think that she wants to get a heads up on when you're going to go make a bust? 

Mayor Adams: Actually, the councilwoman was one of the leading advocates to state that we need to close down these shops. We have responded to her calls, and this is what we're doing, and I think this gives us an opportunity to do so. Our legislative, they have a role to do. We have a role to do in the executive, and the goal is we want to get stuff done for New Yorkers and not be slow in carrying that out. 

Bowens: Sheriff, there are a lot of questions about sometimes what happens to these shops after there are these raids. We know that you have been extremely busy shutting down more than 500 stores. What is being done to ensure that these stores actually stay closed and can't just pay a fine and open back up? 

Sheriff Anthony Miranda: It's over 600 locations that we've closed down to date. These, they go to OATH hearings and they go through a process. Once the ruling comes down, we sign the decisions and the shop can be closed up to a year.  

It also gives the landlords the opportunity to do an abatement process, to be able to apply to lift that sealing order, and to introduce a new business that is a legal business and not illegal cannabis. There's an opportunity to cure and fix the problem so that they can go back and be able to do some service in the community that’s a productive service. 

Mayor Adams: These shops are not only, the product is questionable. We don't know what they've been mixed with, how they've been grown. They're not regulated. They also have become magnets of violence.  

Because it's a cash business, they've been the subject of robberies. It is impacting the quality of life of our community. We really want to thank the community up in the Bronx in that area for helping us close down this shop. 

Bowens: We know there are more than 3,000 that are still open all across the city, far outpacing the actual licensed shops that are available. Is this a problem where you're just whack-a-mole here, trying to close one, open one, close one, open one? 

Mayor Adams: No. Actually, this has… We just started, the few months we've been given this additional authority, we are really now finding our groove and identifying, closing, and going through the OATH process. We had to get it up and operating and we're going to get in front of it. Not only the shops. We want to also go after the distributors that are actually supplying these locations. That's the next level of what we want to accomplish. 

Scotto: Mayor, as you know, that is one of the frustrations of New Yorkers. Another one is the migrant shelters. Yesterday, things got very heated in Brooklyn. One of your City Council people was arrested for biting a police officer.  

First of all, what's going on in that neighborhood in Brooklyn? Why did she feel like she needed to act? Why did she have to act out like this? 

Mayor Adams: This is a shelter, In addition to the migrants and asylum seekers, we have everyday New Yorkers that we have to give shelter to based on the law. Rosanna, when you look across the city, we have some council districts that have 12, 13 shelters in them and we have a few that they have none at all. That's just not fair. It's not right. This is a shelter located in one of the council districts where you don't have shelters located.  

This is an emotional issue. I like Susan. I was surprised that this happened. I'm going to reach out to her. She has been supportive of law enforcement. These emotional issues really require for us to take a moment. You can protest peacefully, but there's no excuse for biting an officer. This was a serious bite that he had on his forearm. I was a bit surprised. It was an unfortunate situation. 

Bowens: A lot of people have seen those images, of course, of that bite. It's pretty dramatic there. When we talk about what happened, her team is saying that she was the one who was being pulled and yanked and choked. Do you think there was an overreaction here from officers? I know you've seen some of this video. 

Mayor Adams: The video is very clear of the chief and his team. They placed their hands on her after the bite. This was not prior to the bite. I think that they should look at the video and then make a statement. That statement should start with an apology of…  

Our law enforcement officers have a challenging job. I'm going to a funeral this morning of one of our recruits that we lost. We know what it is to be a law enforcement person in the city. There's no excuse to ever assault a police officer while they're carrying out their official duties. 

Scotto: Mayor, I know you're frustrated with the migrants and the shelter situation. Randall’s Island has been one of those places everybody is very concerned about in the community. Rogue tents being set up outside of the shelter that you put. Allegations and reports of robberies, staff being assaulted. Is this stuff being hidden from all of us in New York so that we don't get really upset on what's happening in the migrant shelters? 

Mayor Adams: No, just the opposite. I've been very transparent and I'm going to let New Yorkers know what the problems are, because I cannot be the lone voice that has stated this should not be happening to our city. Over 200,000, closer to 208,000 migrants and asylum seekers in our city. When you look at some of the conditions, think about it. 3 to 4,000 people in a location and they can't work. They can't do anything at all but just sit around.  

The overwhelming number of them are just doing the right thing to take the next step on their journey. This is just not right. It has cost us $5 billion, but we are going to continue to do our job and allow people to move on the next steps in their journey. We need help from the federal government. 

Bowens: Just not right is what you said there. A lot of the blame, of course, has been placed on the Biden administration. Now, a lot of pressure on the president to potentially drop out of the race because there is the possibility he could also drag down other candidates, Democrats, maybe in New York. New York could become one of those states that the balance of Congress comes up to. Do you think that President Biden should step down and be replaced at this point? 

Mayor Adams: I have been extremely consistent. I'm riding with Biden. I think that when I look at the beginning of my administration, the help I needed around public safety came to the city and you see the decrease in crime that we're experiencing, even on our transit system. There's a lot of success here. I see the economy. We were dealing with a very dark moment in our economy.  

I'm riding with Biden. I think the president will make a determination on what he wants to do. He has made that clear and the leaders of the Democratic Party must put in place a pathway forward. I look forward to him having four more years. 

Scotto: All right. You've got some decisions to make, too. The fire commissioner says she is resigning, Laura Kavanagh, you've said that you had nothing to do with her resignation. Who's on your shortlist to replace her? 

Mayor Adams: There's a few names out there. We have some talent in New York. That's the great thing about this city. We have a great bench. When someone decides they don't want to be on the court anymore, we can pull from our bench. We're looking at a few names.  

I just cannot tell you how pleased I am with the history-making Commissioner Kavanagh. She wants to do more things in her life, unclear if she wants to stay in the administration. If she does, I want her here. She can stay commissioner as long as she wants. She has really lived up to my expectation of being the first woman to be the fire commissioner in one of the largest fire departments in the country. 

Scotto: Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda, thank you so much for being with us on Good Day New York. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.