The property once proposed as the site for a medical marijuana dispensary has been put up for sale, but the lawsuit filed against Brick Township by the group that sought to open the dispensary is moving forward.
The 6.7-acre parcel at 385 Adamston Road has been listed for sale with Lakis Commercial Realty in Brick with an asking price of $799,000, according to Loopnet.com. The property listing, posted on Monday, notes the parcel is in a rural residential zone and had received a use variance for a retail bank in 1976.
Brick Township is not backing down from a lawsuit filed by the owners of an Adamston Road property that was the latest move the fight over the controversial plans for the site, the township's attorney.
At Tuesday's Township Council meeting, residents in the immediate proximity of the former bank site at 385 Adamston Road who have been opposing the proposal asked for the township's stance on the lawsuit that was filed Aug. 8.
The owners of a former bank site on Adamston Road have filed a lawsuit against the Brick Township Board of Adjustment in the ongoing fight over the future of the property.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Superior Court in Ocean County, seeks the granting of an automatic approval of a plan to farm lettuce in a building proposed to be built at the site.
The lawsuit is just the latest move in the fight over the controversial site, which initially was proposed as a medical marijuana dispensary in August 2018 by 385 Adamston LLC, the owners of the property.
A company that once proposed a medical marijuana dispensary and grow facility on Adamston Road is suing Brick Township, arguing its new proposal should be given automatic approval.
In the lawsuit, attorney Dennis M. Galvin said his client, 385 Adamston LLC, has been denied its right to convert a former bank on the 6.5-acre lot into an indoor farm facility.
Brick Township’s planning board, zoning board and the township as a whole is being sued by the owners of the former bank property originally proposed as a medical marijuana dispensary and grow house.
The attorney for the Brick Township Planning Board issued a blistering rejections rejected a claim by the attorney for a proposed marijuana-turned-lettuce farm that it has earned automatic approval of its application, saying the proposed use isn't permitted.
The battle over the future use of an Adamston Road property once proposed as a medical marijuana dispensary took a sharp turn over the weekend, after the attorney for the property owner filed a legal claim of default approval of its most recent site plans.
Move over, medical marijuana and industrial hemp. Lettuce is the new product a prospective cultivator hopes to grow off Adamston Road.
Anne Davis, co-owner of Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care, which earlier this year scrapped plans to build a medical marijuana dispensary on the site of a former bank, said indoor lettuce cultivation makes sense.
"There’s a huge market for indoor leafy greens and lettuces," said Davis. "It’s become so much more in demand."
The Brick Township Board of Adjustment was scheduled for a special meeting Thursday night for an interpretation of whether growing cannabis or hemp is permitted under the town's zoning ordinances.
The interpretation was to decide whether the zoning board or the Planning Board should be hearing a proposal to put a marijuana farm on an Adamston Road property that had been proposed as a medical marijuana dispensary.
In a letter to the zoning board that was reported by Ocean County Scanner News, attorney Dennis Galvin said Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care in Brick was withdrawing its application for zoning variances to potentially operate a medical marijuana facility at 385 Adamston Road. The site was a bank for many years, lastly under the Ocean First banner.