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Dana Rone feels she is going to be The Queen of Cannabis.
Come 2024, Rone will be opening a one-of-a-kind retail cannabis dispensary at 381 Martin Luther King Blvd. at the intersection of Main Street. The multi-use building has four stories and Rone has a vision for each level.
The first level will be a quiet zone—a learning center. The second level will be a cannabis bar with a karaoke space and a pool table. The third level will be a rental space for painting and yoga. And then there’s the rooftop for those who want to relax and read when they can’t make it to the beach.
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.”
Two marijuana entrepreneurs from Essex County who hope to land one of New Jersey's coveted recreational dispensary licenses will be among the hosts of a virtual "Cannabis Town Hall" on Thursday, March 31.
The virtual event will take place from 6:30 to 8 p.m., and will discuss social equity in the cannabis industry.
Organizers include Corey Dishmen and Charles Penn, the entrepreneurs behind The Library, which is trying to capture a license to run a retail dispensary in West Orange.
When “Cheeba Spot” opens in the summer of 2022, ( Essex County Area) it will be one of the 1st African-American owned cannabis dispensaries in the State of New Jersey; Cheeba Spot will be the first of its kind, providing a safe and appealing shopping experience in an urban pop culture environment that focuses on quality products, customer education, and quality service.
After New Jersey’s groundbreaking 2021 approval to allow legal recreational use and sales of marijuana, Cheeba Spot is eager to enter the space of retail recreational cannabis.
Now, a second reading and public hearing is on the schedule for Monday, Aug. 16 in Bloomfield – and action is expected, officials say.
According to a public notice from the township:
Michael Nochimson: I was totally against the dispensary. I know the people who own that property very well, and we’re trying to get something in there that’s going to be very beneficial to Verona, you know. Unfortunately Rolex USA was looking to go in there, Starbucks was looking to go in there, but we couldn’t get a left turn into there and we’re working on getting a left turn onto Claremont, and we’re working with the DOT [Department of Transportation], and we’re working with the county, and Verona.
Black people are about 3.1 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as white people in Essex County, according to a recent report from the American Civil Liberties Union.
On Monday – the cannabis "holiday" of 4/20 – the ACLU released a nationwide study that analyzed marijuana arrests from 2010 to 2018. (See the full methodology)
Essex County's ratio of 3.1 to 1 was slightly lower than New Jersey's average, where black people were 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession as white people, the ACLU said.
Researchers said seven counties saw more than 2,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2017:
In response to the Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis (Marijuana) Act, which was signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy in July 2019, the West Orange Township Council and West Orange Board of Education recently collaborated on a special meeting to discuss the legislation and possible changes to West Orange’s zoning.
