Three hours before his most recent arrest, the Pizza Pusha, a.k.a. Chris Barrett, leans back in the executive seat of a private jet. He’s in a white Hugo Boss sweatshirt and black Air Force 1’s. Stacked high on the seat next to him are Stoned Gourmet Pizza boxes, the logo printed in kelly-green Batman letters with a marijuana leaf replacing the first O. The boxes are for piping-hot Sicilian slices drizzled with THC-infused olive oil.
Distributing recreational cannabis is still illegal in New York, where the pizza is coming from. It’s still illegal in Florida, where the pizza is headed. The co-pilot, after being asked if the delivery crew could pose up front with a pizza box for Instagram, scurries back to the cockpit to report this drug-smuggling operation to the Florida authorities. Barrett shrugs off the potential implications. “I’ve done a lot of risky things in my life. Selling pizza ain’t one of them,” he says matter-of-factly, with a fuhgeddaboudit salami-shop accent and the hand gestures to match. “Besides, it’s good content.”
In the soon-to-be 15 states (including, this year, New Jersey) with recreational marijuana already approved, it is sold in slick packaging through user-friendly websites and at catered dinner parties. But back in NYC, the state may have decriminalized possession of small amounts, and the NYPD may have cut down on marijuana-related arrests (especially if you’re white or live in an affluent neighborhood), but cannabis delivery services still operate underground. Sellers can’t officially advertise. Craigslist pages offering Astor Place Starbucks meetups at 4:20 are quickly taken down. To grow, pot businesses rely on word of mouth, one text and friend of a friend at a time; it can take years to build a client base.
Denne historien er fra January 18–31, 2021-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra January 18–31, 2021-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Early and Often: David Freedlander - Momentum vs. Machine The Trump and Harris campaigns battle it out for every last vote.
WIth two weeks left to go, the contours of the 2024 presidential election are clear: Both campaigns need voters who usually don’t vote, and Kamala Harris needs to bring the Democratic coalition, including its Trump-curious members, back home.While the Republican side plans to spend the remaining days of the contest trying to lure low-propensity voters to the polls, the Harris team will attempt to persuade voters of color to return to its side and will try to increase numbers among white voters in previously red suburbs.
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
