It was a year that began with promise and potential and one that ends with patience and trepidation.
Although the nascent cannabis industry in New Jersey still awaits legislation to be passed and signed that will allow for an adult-use industry, it was still a momentous year.
Here’s why:
Whether Gov. Phil Murphy makes good on his promise to have the state legislature legalize recreational marijuana, it won’t matter much in Secaucus. The mayor and Town Council adopted a zoning ordinance at their Sept. 11 meeting to ban anyone from growing, processing, distributing, or selling recreational marijuana in town.
Originally up for a final vote at the Aug. 29 council, meeting, the council was forced to delay the matter because the county’s planning board had not reviewed the ordinance in time.
The ordinance would amend the town’s zoning code to prohibit selling, growing, and distributing recreational marijuana. It would not impact medical marijuana, legal in the state since 2010, nor would it impede on recreational marijuana use, should the New Jersey state legislature legalize it. Secaucus currently has one medical marijuana dispensary.
If New Jersey legalizes recreational marijuana any time soon, don’t bet on coming to Secaucus to score.
The mayor and Town Council introduced a zoning ordinance at their July 24 meeting that would ban the sale, growth, and distribution of recreational marijuana in town, blocking recreational marijuana dispensaries from opening. The town already has a medical marijuana dispensary, as medical cannabis has been legal in New Jersey since 2010.
I attended Cannagather with much trepidation. Held at Jersey City’s Zeppelin Hall—site of numerous fundraisers for Steve Fulop, in the midst of one of JC’s fanciest neighborhoods (the Pyongyang of Jersey City, if you will)—I expected the event to be packed full of venture capital-types half my age whom I would reflexively hate. The VC guys were there, but the crowd was much different than I expected.
There’s new kind of Girl Scout cookies for sale in town -- though you’re going to need a prescription to get them. “Girl Scout Cookies” is actually the name of a strain of marijuana sold at the Harmony Dispensary, a medical marijuana facility at 600 Meadowlands Pkwy in Secaucus.
Harmony officially opened for business on June 18. It’s the first such operation in Hudson County, and the sixth Alternative Treatment Center in New Jersey.
The zoning ordinance mainly prohibits a retail business that would seek to open in Secaucus and sell recreational pot and paraphernalia, should recreational marijuana become legal in the state, explained Ken Porro, the town's general counsel. Any such business would have to first seek a variance from the Town Council to open, a variance they likely would not get.
Welcome to Harmony Dispensary, the latest facility to offer medical marijuana in New Jersey.
CBS2’s Meg Baker took an exclusive tour Friday in Secaucus.
CEO Shaya Brodchandel has a pharmaceutical background. He brought Baker behind-the-scenes into the flowering room, where they suited up in sterile white jumpsuits and sunglasses to protect their eyes from the lights that act as the sun during the growing process.
Tucked inside a nondescript commercial warehouse here sits a sophisticated marijuana-growing operation. A custom filtration system feeds a proprietary cocktail of nutrients into a hydroponic, two-level farming system. Two pallets of crops are harvested every day, and the 15,000 square feet will eventually yield two tons of marijuana per year.
And it’s all legal.