Cannabis Dispensaries Coming To Princeton Pending Public Input

PRINCETON, NJ — The township’s Cannabis Task Force (CTF) is inching closer towards making its final recommendation to Town Council. According to officials, CTF will propose Council allow marijuana establishments to operate in town “in any commercially zoned area.”

“We decided that the recommendation the task force is going to make at this point, pending input from the public, is to allow cannabis dispensaries in any commercially zoned area and to limit the number of dispensaries to three,” Eve Niedergang, chair of CTF, told Patch.

However, this recommendation will be made only after “public input is favorable,” Niedergang said. The CTF will be holding two public meetings to hear input from residents.

Based on the recommendation from the Task Force, an ordinance will be presented to Council “not before the second half of October.”

In August, the Council decided to temporarily opt-out of permitting marijuana businesses to operate in town, to give the CTF time to draft recommendations for an opt-in ordinance after reviewing regulations set by the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

Read More Here: Princeton Opts For Temporary Ban On Marijuana Businesses

The task force has identified six to seven potential areas where dispensaries will be located. They include the Central Business District, the Jugtown area, Witherspoon Street, 206 North, and Princeton Shopping Center among others.

“There's a lot of things that we have no control over that are going to drive whether or not any cannabis business opens in town,” Niedergang said. For example, anybody who has a mortgage that's federally guaranteed, or is relying on a bank that has a federal guarantee, will not be able to do business with a cannabis dispensary, Niedergang explained.

Limitations like these narrow down the possible retail options in towns, the Councilwoman said.

The CFT will recommend giving out “possibly one micro license” and two for regular retail. Cannabis businesses also cannot be located or operated near schools.

“Whether anything happens or not, it's so out of our hands. All we're doing is saying we're recommending that this be allowed,” Niedergang said.

The recommendation currently is for retail only and the task force has not yet discussed other licenses like manufacturing, production, etc.

“Because of Princeton's location and the brain trust that's available, some kind of R&D and testing might be a very good match,” Niedergang said. “That's something that the task force hasn't really talked about.”

The CTF will also be focusing on the racial justice and social equity aspect of having marijuana dispensaries in town. They will discuss what to do with potential cannabis retail income to address some of the effects of the war on drugs as it happened in Princeton, and, historically, the injury to communities of color in town. Those recommendations may not be part of the immediate ordinance but could be added later on.

When discussing social equity, the Task Force will focus on how licensing is done. In their recently released rules and regulations, the CRC has given municipalities a lot of discretion to choose who they allow into town. “We can put requirements in place about what we'd like to see in terms of minority-owned or women-owned businesses. There are other criteria we can apply that will hopefully tend to encourage the type of applicants, we'd like to see – businesses that address some of the wrongs in the war on drugs.”

A large part of the Task Force meeting agenda is also to move into dealing specifically with the stigma around having a dispensary in town.

“I think people are worried that it will bring down property values or bring down the look of the neighborhood. I think that's based on an old-fashioned notion,” Niedergang said.

“This is a very wealthy, profitable industry and modern dispensaries are elegant to look at, with strict rules. It's not going to be ugly, cheap, or garish.”

The task force would like to engage in more public discussion before presenting their recommendations to the council. Two meetings have been scheduled – Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. (for details on how to attend click here), and Sept. 18 at 10 a.m.

The public is invited to participate in the discussion.

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