South St. Louis shooting exposes smoke shop secrets

A shooting inside Furr Smoke Shop in south St. Louis on April 19 left two people wounded and triggered a police search that turned up suspected drugs, a rifle and cash. (fox2now.com) St. Louis Metropolitan Police said officers were called shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday to the shop at Arsenal Street and Jefferson Avenue in the Benton Park West neighborhood. Police said one wounded person drove to a firehouse in stable condition, and a second was dropped off at a hospital in critical condition. (fox2now.com, slmpd.org) By Monday, investigators executing a search warrant said they found marijuana, THC-infused chocolate bars, a psychedelic-mushroom component, an AR-15-style rifle with a high-capacity magazine, and illegal gambling machines inside the business. Spectrum News reported police also seized cash during the search. (spectrumlocalnews.com, fox2now.com) City officials moved quickly after the search. Fox 2 reported the Building Division condemned the shop within hours of a police briefing on April 20, and officers said the business was being asked to close. (fox2now.com) The case also exposed a gap between warnings and enforcement. Fox 2 reported Furr Smoke Shop had already appeared on Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway’s March 2026 list of alleged unlicensed dispensaries that received cease-and-desist letters, but the store was still operating when the shooting happened. (fox2now.com) That matters in Missouri because licensed cannabis sales are tightly regulated, while smoke shops often sell hemp-derived products that can look similar to marijuana edibles and vapes. Police said the inventory they found at Furr went beyond ordinary tobacco-shop merchandise and included products requiring closer scrutiny. (spectrumlocalnews.com, fox2now.com) Neighbors said the shop had already become a problem on the block. Benjamin Tello, who lives nearby, told Fox 2 the business “attracts a lot of riffraff” and said he welcomed the city’s action because he has small children. (fox2now.com) A man who told Fox 2 he represented the business ordered reporters to leave and told a passing driver the shop would reopen in a couple of days. As of April 23, police had publicly tied the business to the shooting investigation and the condemnation, but no public response from the shop’s owners was included in the cited reports. (fox2now.com, patch.com) The next steps are more procedural than dramatic: lab testing, possible charges tied to the seized inventory, and any appeal of the condemnation order. The shooting opened the door; the records and evidence search will determine whether the shop stays closed. (fox2now.com, slmpd.org)