A cannabis cultivation firm’s proposed plan to relocate its operations from a 30,000 square-foot facility in urban Irvington, Essex County to a more “environmentally friendly” 17-acre soybean tract on North Pemberton Road in Pemberton Township and construct a “beautiful campus” known as “Pemberton Farm” that would include erecting a 40,000 square-foot red barn, with a pitch to hire “local talent with deep AG experience” has incensed a group of local farmers who have responded publicly by calling the operation “fake farming,” and the prospective end result a “fake farm.”
The indignant group of farmers were joined by other community stakeholders and residents who bombarded Pemberton Township Council and the cannabis “entrepreneurs” during a March 15 meeting with critical questions about the proposal, with a session of the governing body for the second time in a month lasting for some four hours, primarily over the prospect of a cannabis operation seeking local support to come to town.
And just like the initial session over a separate, unrelated cannabis retailer application, this one involving a “request to open up a cultivation facility at 195 North Pemberton Road” led to times of lost decorum.
“This is an abomination that you are even entertaining this because at the last meeting all the people were against this!” declared Resident Michelle Forman.
But unlike the retail proposal for the former Jamison’s Bar and Grill on Fort Dix Road that received 3-2 support earlier this month, with the Democrats on council backing it without much hesitancy, at least one of the Democratic members this time around expressed some reluctance in giving support in the near-term for the cultivation facility, citing what he saw as unsatisfactory answers to at least some of the questions that were asked and lack of preparedness by the applicant.
