The fate of a proposed medical marijuana dispensary and cultivation facility won't be known until at least January.
The zoning board Monday postponed a meeting due to overcrowding.
The meeting room at the Brick municipal building was already at capacity 30 minutes before the Board of Adjustment was scheduled to meet. While the next hearing date isn't known yet, it will definitely be held in a larger location.
The Brick zoning board of adjustment will hear continued testimony on Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care, which hopes to open the first medical marijuana dispensary at the Jersey Shore and build a new 48,000-square-foot marijuana growing facility behind it.
Zoning approval is required because the bank property sits in an otherwise-residential zone. The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at the municipal building.
Neighbors of a proposed marijuana dispensary and grow facility on Adamston Road say dispensary supporters are stealing their opposition signs.
Residents said at least a dozen signs were stolen from lawns over the past week and that sign thieves returned over multiple days to take replacements.
Michael Doumas, whose Adamston Road home overlooks the proposed dispensary property, said four signs were stolen from his yard this week. Watch scenes from the early October zoning board meeting on the dispensary application in the video above.
Pressed by dozens of residents during a Facebook Live town hall meeting this week to take a position on a proposal to build a medical marijuana dispensary on Adamston Road, Brick Mayor John Ducey said he is legally bound to stay out of the discussion.
“If I’m found to influence the board, it’s ethically wrong and morally wrong, and people find themselves in very hot water – going to jail and what not, about influencing a board,” he said.
Despite the potential “demand” for an ATC locally, there was an outcry from a majority of the residents at the meeting against the idea.
The crowd got rowdy, clapping for those at the microphone who shared their similar mindset and shouting at those others who did not. Zoning Board Chairman Harvey Langer consistently interrupted public comment and testimony, demanding respect for fellow residents and the applicants.
A medical marijuana dispensary proposed for a former bank property on Adamston Road was not approved by the township’s Board of Adjustment Wednesday night. With testimony and what is expected to be significant public comment ahead, a more than three hour-long board meeting was adjourned until Nov. 19.
That meeting could become moot, however: the state's decision on which companies will receive the six licenses to operate dispensaries is expected to come down Nov. 1. Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care is one of 45 applicants for two available licenses in Central Jersey, said Anne Davis, one of the principals of the company.
“We chose this location after a long, long search,” said Anne Davis, a Brick attorney and principal of Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care. “We chose this location because it’s a bank. Because it had a vault. Because it has cameras throughout the building and handicapped access — everything we’d want for our patient services center.”
Both Davis and co-owner Karen Medlin, of Marlboro, are intimately familiar with the New Jersey medical marijuana program. Davis is a registered patient, using the drug to treat symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
The fate of the first medical marijuana dispensary at the Jersey Shore is up in the air until November.
Six new New Jersey medical marijuana dispensaries will receive state licenses, doubling the number of existing locations. Mike Davis
The zoning board on Wednesday declined to take a vote on the plan by Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care to convert the former OceanFirst Bank on Adamston Road into a dispensary, scheduling another hearing for Nov. 19.
The owners of Jersey Shore Therapeutic Health Care have proposed building a medical marijuana dispensary and cultivation facility at the Adamston Road property.
Under the plans, the bank building would be converted into the "patient services center," the actual medical marijuana dispensary where patients could purchase the drug.
The group has also proposed building a new 48,000-square-foot cultivation center, where cannabis could grow.