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A not funny thing happened on Fulton Street last week.

The vacant downtown storefront at the corner of Cliff Street, once slated to be a southern-style cafe, became home instead to High Society, an unlicensed pot shop.

Wait, you say — didn’t Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams pledge to rid the city of thousands of illegal, dangerous storefront dope dealers?

Hah! The unlicensed marijuana merchants aren’t just holding out in the face of the “crackdown,” but — as High Society’s arrival proves — they’re multiplying.

Pandemic-driven economic trends combined with “woke” government policies and attitudes set the city up for the pot-on-every-corner plague that’s worse than sidewalk bridges which stand forever.

And Hochul’s alleged “crackdown” won’t make a dent.

The 2020 lockdown, instigated by business-hating elected officials and “scientists,” killed off innumerable shops and restaurants and left long-empty spaces behind.

The retail wipeout made normally responsible landlords willing — make that desperate — to rent vacant storefronts to anybody.

Smoke sellers have the run of the town for multiple reasons.

Insurmountable licensing hurdles deterred legitimate marijuana merchants from challenging the unscrupulous profiteers.

The license rules, too, were enacted under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who effectively turned state government over to far-left Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrew Stewart-Cousins.

The Big Apple long had more storefronts than the market can bear, especially in Manhattan. Online shopping increased the number of vacant stores further.

The license rules, too, were enacted under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who effectively turned state government over to far-left Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrew Stewart-Cousins.

But it wasn’t until the 2020 lockdown that the situation turned into a catastrophe.

Many older tenement buildings, where most of the unlicensed pot spots are concentrated, are so hard up for rent revenue, they’d lease to the devil.

That’s surely why the owner of the three-story building at the 34 Cliff Street, on the corner of Fulton Street — an entity identified in city records as “Dr. Fulton” — let High Society in the door.

They no doubt were frustrated at not finding a new tenant after Peaches Low Country Kitchen walked away from the space where it never opened despite years of “coming soon” signs.

There aren’t enough sportswear shops or food outlets to fill all the dark storefronts.

Tenements are marijuana magnets for the same reason that fancy, modern buildings now lease their ground floors to tenants they never considered in the past — such as walk-in medical and dental clinics, doggie “spas,” laser-treatment salons and classrooms.

The ground-floor former site of Lester’s clothing store, a neighborhood Upper East Side fixture for a half-century, is now home to Goldfish Swim School with a giant pool that draws stares through the window.