New Brunswick Will Allow 6 Marijuana Businesses To Open

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — New Brunswick, Highland Park and Edison are emerging as the Middlesex County towns most welcoming of retail marijuana.

The New Brunswick City Council previously said they would allow up to six marijuana businesses to open within city limits. The city now announced all licenses have now been granted and the city is not accepting any new cannabis business applications at this time.

The pot businesses were approved to open in New Brunswick's Downtown (the area by the train station) and along Easton Avenue.

Edison is allowing multiple pot shops to open in the area southeast of Woodbridge Avenue between Amboy Avenue and Mill Road. Read more about that on the Edison Patch. Highland Park borough will also grant six marijuana retail licenses.

In all three towns, people will not be able to smoke or ingest marijuana on site. On-site pot consumption will be prohibited; this extends to outdoor seating. So these will not be outdoor marijuana smoking cafes, the nature of which were actually just approved this winter to open in Long Branch.

Here is exactly what is coming to New Brunswick:

• Three pot retail shops: Where customers can purchase marijuana
• One of each: A marijuana cultivation (also called a "grow" business); a manufacturing location and a wholesale pot shop.

Pot smoking will not be allowed in any New Brunswick city park or public area, such as sidewalks or at the NJ Transit station.

New Brunswick will set its tax rates at 1 percent for wholesalers and 2 percent for all other pot businesses, MyCentralJersey reported this week.

While marijuana is now legal in New Jersey, many Central Jersey towns have taken steps to ban marijuana shops/weed businesses from opening in town, including medical marijuana.

South Amboy, Piscataway, Bridgewater and Old Bridge have all passed "pot shop" bans, which they say extends to medical marijuana.

There already is an existing medical marijuana shop that's been open for several years on Rt. 1 in Woodbridge, and Woodbridge said last year it will also be allowed to sell recreational. However, that will be the only store in town that will be allowed to sell recreational pot, Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac said previously. Woodbridge: Only Our Existing Medical Pot Shop Can Sell Marijuana

Aberdeen Township will allow marijuana to be grown in that town, but it will not allow retail marijuana shops to open within town limits. Aberdeen Will Allow Marijuana Grow, Not Pot Shops, To Open

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