Potentially Combustible Dust Probed by Federal Inspectors at Queens HotHead Grabba Factory

Federal safety inspectors are investigating a tobacco processing factory in Ozone Park, Queens, operated by street brand HotHead Grabba, expanding its probe of the company.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched its probe of the 99th Street factory on May 2, records show, nearly two weeks after former employees told THE CITY that they experienced dizziness and injury during work shifts at that facility and were owed thousands in unpaid wages.

A referral, not an employee complaint, triggered the safety probe, the records indicate. An OSHA spokesperson declined to say whether another agency made the safety referral to OSHA. Two former employees filed wage theft complaints to the New York State Department of Labor on April 11.

OSHA visited the site with a focus on potentially combustible dust — a hazard that has been a priority for the federal agency following deadly factory explosions — the inspection records show. What specifically is creating the hazard, or how it may or may not be combustible, is not clear from the record.

Since February, at least a half dozen former employees have filed wage theft or safety hazard complaints against HotHead Grabba, a brand of loose “grabba” tobacco sold in smoke shops and bodegas across the city and region. Both OSHA and the state labor department previously confirmed they were investigating HotHead Grabba.

The brand is known to operate at least two tobacco processing factories, one each in Brooklyn and Queens, where workers reported earning low wages stripping or grinding tobacco leaves.

One Queens worker, according to calculations filed in a complaint to the state, was paid $1,600 for 410 hours of work — equivalent to $3.90 an hour.

In whistleblower complaints and interviews with THE CITY, former employees in Brooklyn and Queens described enduring dizziness, vomiting, nausea, shortness of breath and urinary tract infections on the job.

HotHead Grabba did not respond to questions from THE CITY sent on Thursday to their Instagram account , where an unidentified representative has previously responded to inquiries.

In March, messages from the account pushed back on what they called “false allegations.”

“How can we ever owe someone thousands of dollars we don’t offer that kind of help here, it’s impossible,” one message read.

In recent weeks, HotHead Grabba deleted photos and videos from its Instagram that showed their process for curing the tobacco leaves.

Nauseous and Dizzy

THE CITY first exposed the brand’s Cypress Hills, Brooklyn sweatshop in February, after workers came forward with allegations that they were working six days a week, up to 13 hours a day, stripping tobacco leaves by hand for the equivalent of $8 an hour — half of New York’s minimum wage — and no overtime.

Even at that low wage, their paychecks were not consistent, they asserted in their complaints to the state labor department, and they alleged they were still owed thousands of dollars.

The workers at that facility, who are all Ecuadorian migrant women, spoke to THE CITY on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution.

Two former workers at the Ozone Park facility, also from Ecuador, came forward with similar experiences. The brothers told THE CITY the tobacco stench inside the small unventilated factory was so strong that they stuffed their surgical masks their employer provided with tissues in an attempt to filter out the dust. Both quit in late 2023.

The ground tobacco, they said, was “everywhere” — inside their masks, stuck to their clothes and hanging in the air, making them nauseous and dizzy.

The brothers filed their wage complaints with the help of Make the Road New York, an immigrant advocacy group.

“We don’t want this to happen to anyone else ever again,” the older brother told THE CITY in April.

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