The members of the Hoboken City Council agreed on one thing in early 2022 — they needed more restrictions for new cannabis dispensaries opening in Hoboken.
In a meeting in March of 2022, they approved a limit on new dispensaries, saying only six could open in the mile-square city. The council also voted 8-1 (with Councilman Michael Russo being the outlier) that dispensaries couldn't open within 600 feet of a school — a difficult rule to meet, considering there are more than a dozen schools in one square mile.
At the time, business owners and city officials noted that it was unclear whether dispensaries that had already gotten approval from the city's Cannabis Review Board, but not other boards — businesses that had already spent time and money to apply to open — would be "grandfathered in."
Last month, just a few weeks shy of opening, a local microdispensary, Blue Violets, found out they'd lost a court case and no longer had Planning Board approval to open.