By BILL BARLOW/Special to the Sentinel
UPPER TOWNSHIP — With Ocean City moving forward with an ordinance banning growing or selling cannabis, Upper Township Committee members say they don’t want it in their municipality either.
Members discussed the topic March 8 during a committee meeting, at which there seemed to be a consensus that the township did not want to be the site of any cannabis-related businesses.
Committeewoman Kim Hayes said she had spoken with township attorney Dan Young about the township taking action.
“Dan and I have been back and forth about this, and I think there are some things that we’re going to have to talk about,” she said at the meeting, adding that the township has 180 days from when Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation Feb. 22 creating a legal cannabis market to adopt a local ordinance.
“I am most certainly against allowing a marijuana dispensary to come into our township. And if we need to get started on an ordinance such as that, I think we need do it very quickly,” Committee Member John Coggins said.
Young said the township has the ability to ban everything except home delivery. He told committee members that there are aspects of the new law over which the township will have no control.
As approved, the law allows the possession of as much as 6 ounces of marijuana and creates a regulated and taxed cannabis market for those 21 and older, allowing the sale of edibles, concentrates and the dried leaves at state-licensed dispensaries. In towns that do not allow cannabis sales, it will be similar to an adult having a bottle of whiskey, wine or beer in Ocean City, where alcohol is not sold but can be consumed at home.
On Thursday, Ocean City introduced an ordinance banning cannabis sales, growth and manufacture in any zone in the city. That ordinance is set for a review by the Planning Board before coming up for a public hearing and final vote in April.
“Obviously, Ocean City has been quite vocal about their opposition to the new laws,” Young said. “Some of them we don’t have jurisdiction over, we can’t do anything about.”
As towns work out how to handle legalized marijuana, state officials have their own deadline, with 180 days to establish the regulations for the new industry, according to Lori Buckelew, the assistant executive director and the director for government affairs for the New Jersey League of Municipalities.
Contacted after the Upper Township meeting, she said the league has taken no official position on legalization but added that it pushed for as much local control as possible in the state laws.
She, too, said towns have 180 days to take action. Otherwise, the cultivation, manufacturing, wholesale sales and distribution would automatically become a permitted use in all industrial zones in the community and a conditional use in business zones.
If no action is taken, she said, the community would then have to wait five years to ban the use.
“There’s a real tight deadline here,” she said. But towns that opt out can decide to ease restrictions at any time.
There is also money on the line. Towns can charge a local tax, at 2 percent for cultivation, manufacture and sales, and a 1 percent tax on wholesale operations. Municipalities have a great deal of leeway, Buckelew said. Some towns could allow the plant to be grown in an industrial zone but not allow sales.
Reactions from municipalities has been mixed. For instance, Middle Township is in talks with a Massachusetts-based company over the use of a former seafood processing plant to grow and sell cannabis for the medical market, and officials in Atlantic City have discussed cannabis as a tourism marketing tool.
Elected officials in other communities are dead-set against allowing cannabis sales, even though voters statewide and in the region strongly supported a referendum in November to create a legal market.
Young advised Upper Township to consider the issue and decide what the township should do.
“You can always revisit it if things change. This is an evolving situation. We’ve never had it before. The regulations aren’t even out yet. We just have the statute,” Young told Township Committee. “I don’t think we need to act immediately but it’s something in the coming months you should address.”
Mayor Rich Palombo advised against rushing, suggesting the township would not want to approve an ordinance and then have to amend it soon after.
“My only concern is, we’ve always said we’re not going to develop an ordinance unless we can enforce it,” he said. “It may make sense to drop back for a month or two, or 30 days, just to see if anything new comes out.”
Hayes said she is worried about the impact of Ocean City’s decision.
“So you have concerns about people trying to open right outside of Ocean City in Upper Township,” she said.
“I think it’s something that we need to keep on top of and be very aware of. And we have to be very cautious because it’s not, I think, a thing we want to see happen in Upper Township,” Committeeman Curtis Corson said.
Hayes suggested the topic be included on the agenda for the next Township Committee meeting for continued discussion. That meeting is set for March 22.