Chiappetta has a conditional license from the state to cultivate — not sell — cannabis and asked the city council for approval.
He clarified his business would be "wholesale, not a dispensary" and that his farm would have to sell to a licensed dispensary.
"I know in New Jersey growers are going to come and they're going to bring in California companies and Canadian companies in, and so I wanted to prevent doing that. I wanted to keep everything local," Chiappetta said. "So, I reached out to my good friends at Kula Farm and started doing a workshop." That gives him local workers who know how to grow cannabis indoors.
"With (the city council's) support we can approve wholesale cultivation business in Asbury Park and together we can also disallow dispensaries, and the law allows each municipality to opt in and out of the different licenses," Chiappetta said. "We want to house small, locally owned companies to do extraction, gummies, all that stuff."