Eye-Catching Smoke Shop Opens On Upper West Side In Former Pizza Spot

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — If you happen to be walking along Amsterdam Avenue between West 83rd and 84th streets at night, you will now be met by the glowing white light of Zootiez Smoke Shop.

The business opened recently at the Upper West Side storefront with what looks like a large neon marijuana leaf on its front window. The words Raw and Backwoods are printed on the floor in red letters, which are types of rolling papers used to smoke weed.

Zootiez took over a storefront at 493 Amsterdam Ave. that has gone through a few changes in recent years.

Current residents will most likely remember it best as Caesar's Palace Pizza, which closed in 2017. It more recently served as home to Davids Check Cashing, but the business only lasted a little more than a year at the location.

Zootiez's website does not have any information about the products it sells, but it does advertise $400 varsity jackets that take four to eight weeks to ship. Other clothing options include a "Puffin On Zootiez Sweatshirt" for $80, and a "Zootiez Pray I Get A New Connect Shorts" for $45.

The website does bring you to its different social media platforms, though, which highlight a variety of articles about the company's work in the cannabis industry.

"Keen to continue developing more and more rare strains, Zootiez insists on hiring the best of the best in cultivators and breeders to bring Zootiez cannabis up to the level of excellence and potency the brand has become so known for, earning prominent fans in public figures from rappers to movie stars to A-List celebrities," reads a story by Markets Herald about Zootiez in June 2022.

The headline of the Markets Herald article was, "How Rare Strains From Premium Cannabis Brand Zootiez Became The Go-To Of Industry Aficionados."

As the first legal cannabis dispensary in New York opened last week in Greenwich Village, elected officials that include Mayor Eric Adams and Upper West Side Council Member Gale Brewer have pledged to crackdown on the plethora of illicit cannabis vendors that have popped up in recent months.

Brewer's office recently found 26 illegal marijuana stores on the Upper West Side between West 54th and 108th streets.

“I am concerned that the free-for-all environment will become entrenched and undermine the law’s intent before the legal market takes shape,” Brewer said at the time. “There are public health risks such as underage use and contaminated products.

Brewer responded to a tweet by Patch about the new Upper West Side business with the comment — "That's 27" — referencing the addition of Zootiez to her office's list of 26 illegal cannabis stores in the neighborhood.

You can learn more about Zootiez on its website.