The West Orange Township Council amends its cannabis ordinance at the Feb. 15 meeting.
WEST ORANGE, NJ — The West Orange Township Council amended the township’s legal cannabis sales ordinance on second reading at its Feb. 15 meeting after a discussion that lasted more than two and a half hours. Council members unanimously agreed to eliminate a $500 application fee and replace it with an amount to be established in the future, as well as not allow any dispensaries to be located within 100 feet of the property line of any property with a school building owned and operated by the West Orange Board of Education. Potential cannabis business owners can begin applying for licenses on March 15.
Councilman Bill Rutherford expressed his support for the ordinance including a similar buffer zone around houses of worship in town, which is currently not included in the ordinance. Councilwoman Cindy Matute-Brown, who is the chairperson of the Cannabis Advisory Task Force, said it was not included in the ordinance because of a potential lack of inventory the buffers could create.
“If we buffer all schools, and alone the Board of Ed has 12 buildings, if we buffer all private schools, preschool buildings, all educational institutions, and all churches and houses of worship, we may as well not have a cannabis industry in town,” Matute-Brown said at the meeting. “There is just no way to offer the establishment of a cannabis industry in town because there just is not room.”
Applications to open a cannabis business in town are first sent to the CATF, which then either approves or denies them. The applications that are approved will be sent to the township council to either approve or deny; the council ultimately approves whether or not a specific business will be permitted to open in West Orange.
A map delineating the zoning and buffer zones allowed for dispensaries was not available at the meeting, but Rutherford said he did not believe added buffers would reduce the amount of land available for dispensaries enough to prevent business. Councilwoman Tammy Williams disagreed.
“There is a tremendous limitation on inventory,” she said at the meeting. “I’ve been looking. You have to go back to the permitted zones. You can’t just look at where the churches are located, you have to take into consideration the zone where it’s applicable.”
If the council tabled the ordinance and started over, attorney Mark Moon said there would be a delay in beginning to approve or deny applications when the applications begin to be submitted to the township. The township doesn’t know exactly how many applications it will receive when the application period opens on March 15, but Moon is expecting many, based on how competitive the industry is. This is why the council decided to approve the ordinance at the meeting, with stipulations in the application process so that potential business owners know that buffer zone distances and the addition of other buffer zones could change in the future.
“We’re considering additional limitations. At the very least, no one is going to be surprised,” Moon said about ensuring applicants know that the buffer zones could be changed in the future.
Rutherford supported evaluating applications by how close a potential business is to a house of worship, even if there isn’t a specific regulation in the ordinance; if the task force or the council determines it is too close, they can reject the application. The ordinance could still change in the future.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for some business owners, some of whom will be in West Orange, hopefully,” he said at the meeting. “I would not want to handicap a dispensary. Whoever is lucky enough to get that license is going to make a tremendous amount of money; it’s going to be transformational for them. If there’s a way to move forward without handicapping applicants in the process, I think we should do everything we can to make that happen.”
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