Township officials are the latest in Ocean County to mount an attack against the legalization of recreational marijuana, defiantly opposing Gov. Phil Murphy's efforts to greenlight the pot industry in New Jersey
Barnegat Mayor Alfonso Cirulli is taking an anti-pot petition to churches and residents throughout the township to garner support. Last week, the Township Committee also passed a resolution opposing legalization of recreational use.
The co-owner of a proposed medical cannabis dispensary and grow house on Adamston Road in Brick Township said she will continue to seek approval for the facility, but only after personal disputes with some objectors to the application are settled.
“We’re definitely not abandoning the project, that’s for sure,” said Anne Davis, a local attorney who co-owns Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care (JSTHC), the proposed dispensary, known as an alternative treatment center.
The legalization of recreational marijuana, however, hasn’t been the top issue of its kind in Brick. Instead, a proposal to build a medical marijuana dispensary and grow house in a residential zone has stirred up the most controversy. But the medical marijuana proposal could be the first of many to appear before the township’s zoning board should a recreational market be created in New Jersey.
The last-minute discovery of a major issue regarding the notices sent to residents near a proposed medical marijuana dispensary and grow house in Brick led to another postponement of the application for Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care (JSTHC) to build its facility.
Zoning approval is required because the bank property sits in a residential zone. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the municipal building.
Jersey Shore THC is in a unique situation. The company had hoped to win one of the six new state Department of Health permits to operate a medical marijuana dispensary in New Jersey but didn't have the required zoning board approval.
Instead, the state didn't award a contract to any dispensary operator eyeing the Jersey Shore, giving the two Central Jersey permits instead to proposed locations in Elizabeth and Ewing.
Some Brick residents contacted Shorebeat on Monday, confused as to whether the planned hearing on a proposed medical marijuana dispensary and grow house was still on schedule to be taken up by the township’s Board of Adjustment on Wednesday.
The short answer: yes, the hearing will be held as planned at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Civic Plaza, 270 Chambers Bridge Road.
Despite failing to gain a license in the recent first round of expansion of New Jersey’s medical marijuana program, a Brick company will still seek zoning approval to operate a dispensary and construct a 48,000 square foot grow house.
The Brick Township Board of Adjustment is scheduled to resume hearing a proposal for a medical marijuana dispensary on Jan. 9.
The hearing is set for 7 p.m. at Civic Plaza, 270 Chambers Bridge Road in Brick, zoning board secretary Pamela O'Neill confirmed. Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care is seeking permission to turn the former Ocean First bank on Adamston Road into a medical marijuana dispensary.
And finally, the fate of a proposed marijuana dispensary at the site of the former OceanFirst Bank on Adamston Road is still unknown since a second Board of Adjustment meeting scheduled for December was postponed since the crowd was too big for the meeting room.
The meeting would be rescheduled for a larger venue at a later date.
The state is allowing six treatment centers to be opened in New Jersey: two in the north, two in central Jersey and two in the south.
Jersey Shore THC was not one of six dispensaries licensed by the state Department of Health on Monday. Despite Ocean County having the second-largest number of medical cannabis patients in the state, neither the proposed Brick dispensary nor any others in the Shore area were licensed. Instead, the state opted to license dispensaries in Phillipsburg, Paterson, Rahway, Ewing, Atlantic City and Vineland – nearly all of which already have a dispensary closer than Brick.