Raines law hotel. State statutes allowed that any business was considered a hotel if it had 10 rooms for lodging and served sandwiches with its liquor. Saloons quickly found a loophole by adding small furnished bedrooms and applying for a hotel license. Dozens of "Raines law hotels," often located directly above saloons, opened. As a contemporary source put it, "This offered a premium on the transformation of saloons into hotels with bedrooms and led to unlooked-for evils" (an increase in prostitution), as the rooms in many "Raines law hotels" were used mostly by prostitutes and unmarried couples. (In some cases these rooms
Cannabis in New York Cannabis in New York Cannabis in New York is illegal for recreational use, but is permitted for medical use, and possession of small amounts is decriminalized. Offenses related to the possession or sale of marijuana and "concentrated cannabis", outside those allowed by the state's medical marijuana statute, are defined in Article 221 of the New York State Penal Law. The former term is defined in the state's Public Health Law as "all parts of the plant of the genus "Cannabis", whether growing or not; the seeds thereof; the resin extracted from any part of the plant; and every compound, manufacture,