On August 3, St. Peter’s University filed a lawsuit against Medusa LLC in Hudson County Court seeking to overturn a plan from an endeavor called Medusa at 759A Bergen Avenue. Jersey Digs profiled the business earlier this year shortly after the planning board signed off on their application to open a dispensary that includes a basement consumption lounge.
Also named as a defendant is Jersey City’s planning board, who approved the Medusa plans during their April 5 meeting. Medusa was granted a conditional use variance to convert their space from a clothing store into a class five adult-use cannabis dispensary, but St. Peter’s says the approvals should be thrown out due to Medusa’s proximity to their campus.
The lawsuit, filed by Newark-based law firm Genova Burns, claims that approval for the conditional use requires that the main entry door of any cannabis “be at least two hundred feet from any school identified on the City’s Official Drug Free School and Park Zone Map,” per section 151-1 of the Jersey City Municipal Code.
While the case notes that the city’s code does not define the term ‘school’ in clear terms, it claims that Jersey City’s Official Drug Free School and Park Zone Map identifies both Pre-K or K-12 schools along with and college and universities, with St. Peter’s campus being designated as “school number 101.”