She smoked them out.
A Big Apple pol went undercover at a smoke shop in Queens to help law enforcement crack down on the shady storefront.
City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) conducted a sting in September at the newly-opened Howard Puff Convenience in Old Howard Beach, following at least a dozen complaints to her office that the shop was peddling illicit joints and untaxed cigarettes to underage smokers and tokers.
“Sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands and go incognito to snuff out the illegal smoke shop issue in our district,” Ariola told The Post. “And let me be blunt – we are going to clean this place up, one Puff at a time.”
In footage provided to The Post, a store clerk stands behind a glass counter flush with weed edibles and candy bars, hawking a pack of unstamped Marlboro Light 100s to the concerned councilwoman for just $10.
“Are you sure there’s not something wrong with them . . . Are you buying them from the [Indian] Reserve also?” asked Ariola on the video.
“This is good here,” he replied.
Ariola’s office sent the recording to the Queens district attorney’s office before the city sheriff’s office, NYPD, and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection raided the store on Oct. 30, slapping the business with $58,200 in fines and seizing cannabis and vaping products, according to authorities.
The store operator was also arrested on felony charges for possession of cannabis and more than 10,000 cigarettes.
The raid on Howard Puff came amid a heated hearing in the state Senate addressing the proliferation of illegal smoke shops, which according to the Sheriff’s Office exceed 1,500 across the five boroughs despite being subject to fines of up to $20,000 a day, versus just 11 legal dispensaries.
This week, City Councilman Keith Powers (D-Manhattan) introduced legislation that would beef up law enforcement’s ability to padlock illegal pot shops under the city’s nuisance abatement law.
Spokespersons for the Sheriff’s Office and Queens DA declined to comment on Ariola’s operation.