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| Resinate Dispensary, Northampton, Mass |
Updated 7/13/2022 - Added info on new application Highway 90 LLC
Updated 7/16/2022 - Updated with approximate boundaries of EVCO
Updated 9/8/2022 - Updated with date of hearing at Evesham Planning Board for Enlighten Cannabis
Updated 9/9/2022 - Rooted of Evesham received conditional license
Updated 10/7/2022 - Enlighten Dispensary approved at Evesham Township Planning Board
Updated 10/27/2022 - Enlighten received their conditional license at the NJ CRC meeting
Updated 11/6/2022 - Added Planning Board meeting into for Highway 90 LLC
Update 11/21/2022 - High Way 90 dispensary approved at Planning Board
Update 2/10/2023 - Highway 90 granted an annual adult-use license at the NJ CRC meeting on 2/8/2023
Update 3/7/2023 - Floro Evesham approved at the Evesham Planning Board at 446 Route 70
With adult-use cannabis sales expected to begin in NJ this Thursday, April 21, 2022, it seems like a good time to review where Evesham currently stands in regards to cannabis businesses. This will probably be a lengthy post, because there are a lot of moving parts, but I want to start with a caveat – I am not in the government, I am not a lawyer, I am not on the Planning or Zoning Boards. I will be interpreting laws and ordinances as a layman. If you think I got something incorrect, please feel free to let me know.
In November 2020, NJ voters went to the poll and overwhelmingly
approved legalizing adult-use marijuana by a 2 to 1 margin (67% to 33%). In both Burlington County and Evesham, the
vote was even more lopsided, 71% to 29%.
After this vote, individual municipalities still had the option to
allow or ban cannabis businesses in their town, though they cannot prevent residents from purchasing cannabis elsewhere and consuming it in their municipality. As of this time, zero adult-use cannabis dispensaries have been approved in New Jersey. Several already existing medical use facilities were given the green light last week to sell adult-use, and NJ has issued a couple dozen provisional licenses, meaning an applicant has been approved but they do not have a location approved yet. (I don't believe any of the conditional licenses were for the applicants from Evesham.) (UPDATE: 4/20/2022: None of the conditional licenses issued are for dispensaries - they are all Class 1
Cultivation Conditional Licenses and Class 2 Manufacturer Conditional Licenses)
In August 2021, the Evesham Town Council passed ordinance 31-8-2001, establishing rules for cannabis businesses in town. They designated two areas of town where these businesses could be established, and another ordinance was passed to change zoning accordingly – the “Industrial Park” section of town off Greentree Road (near the Mount Laurel border) and the Evesham Crossroads District, which is centered on the Routes 70 and 73 intersection. The EVCO is essentially Route 70 from the Cherry Hill town line to Walmart and Renaissance Square, except for Allison Shopping Center. It also includes Route 73 from Chick Fil A and Burns Honda to Brick Road. There are a few exceptions (such as Evans School), but that's the essentially boundaries. This ordinance also set a limit on the number of dispensaries at five. Another ordinance established an excise tax of 2% to go directly to the Township on all purchases of cannabis in the Township.
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| EVCO in blue outline 1) Walmart 2) Renaissance Square 3) Marlton Crossing 4) ShopRite |
In order to establish a dispensary in Evesham, three things must happen: a license must be granted by the State, the Town Council must issue a resolution supporting the licensee, and the licensee must appear before the Evesham Planning Board for approval.
To date, the Township has issued four five (Updated 7/13/2022) Resolutions of Support. I will look at each of these individually,
because they are all unique and each raises its own questions.
1) On March 9th, the Town Council issued a
Resolution of Support for Rooted of Evesham LLC to open a cannabis retailer at
929-931 West Route 70. This is the home
of the former BP/Conoco Gas Station at the intersection of Route 70 and
Conestoga Road. The gas station has been
closed for quite a few years now and the underground tanks were removed last
year.
In order to have a dispensary here, presumably a new building would need to be
built. However, reading the ordinance, I
question whether this can happen. According
to the ordinance, “no
public entrance into a cannabis retail store may be located any closer than …Two hundred
and fifty (250) feet from a residential district or use, or any place of
worship”
Reading that, it appears that the front entrance to a dispensary must be 250
feet from a residential district. Using
Google Earth and assuming they build a new building really really close to
Route 70, I can’t see how you can fit a dispensary on that site and have the
front door be 250 feet from the Metropolitan Apartments directly behind
it. While these are obviously rough
estimates, the yellow line is 229 feet. While
the applicant can certainly ask for a variance at the Planning Board, a variance will only be granted if there is a valid reason to stray from the ordinance.
UPDATE: Rooted of Evesham received a conditional license at the NJ CRC meeting on 9/9/2022.
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| As per Google Earth, the yellow line is 228.66 feet in length. A dispensary here appears to be too close to residential housing. |
2) On March 9th, the Town Council issued a Resolution of Support for Sativa Wellness to open a dispensary at 104A Centre Boulevard. Where is Centre Boulevard you ask? Its off of Old Marlton Pike and behind Pat’s Pizza. On the one hand, this seems like a perfect location, it’s a small vacant office that could quickly be converted into a dispensary. However, there may be problems with his location as well. Like the former gas station, it appears to be within 250 feet of a residential area. In addition, according to the ordinance, “The site shall have frontage on a State Highway.” This location does not have frontage on Route 70 or 73 and you cannot enter it directly from either highway. You can enter Marlton Crossing from Route 73 and drive through the parking lot, around the back of Pat’s Pizza and eventually get there, but I’m not sure that qualifies as ‘frontage’ on Route 73. And the office complex containing 104A Centre Boulevard is definitely a distinct parcel of land from Marlton Crossing.
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| This site on Centre Boulevard also appears to be within 250 of a residential area |
In addition to those four five (Updated 7/13/2022) applicants, two other parties have
appeared before Town Council in the last two months advising that they would be
applying for a license and asking the Town Council for a Resolution of
Support. The first of these was Richard
Birdoff, the Principal and President of RD Management, the development company
for both the Shoppes at Renaissance and the long stalled Sunbird Plaza (next to
Outback Steakhouse). He advised his company would be applying for a license for
a dispensary in town. My original assumption is that his group would apply to
build a dispensary at one of those two places, however, there may be
difficulties with each location. Sunbird
Plaza is OUTSIDE of the Evesham Crossroads district and therefore is not zoned
for a cannabis dispensary. And since the
Renaissance Shoppes and Apartments are a mixed use development, I don’t see how
you could open a dispensary there and still be “two hundred and fifty (250)
feet from a residential district or use” (Update: 4/26/2022 - Richard Birdoff heads the team behind Englighten Health & Wellness, mentioned as #4 above.)
At the most recent Town Council meeting on April 13, 2022, a Medford businessman
named Steve Cassidy advised he would be applying for a license as well. He also posed a question to the Council –
while the number of dispensaries in town is limited at 5, is the number of
Resolutions of Support also limited at 5?
Since there are now at least 6 interested parties, will only five Resolutions
of Support be granted? Mr Cassidy was
directed to speak with the Township Manager and Attorney after the
meeting. (Update: 4/26/2022 - As mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are currently only 5 known interested parties)
And finally….
Many people have expressed concerns about having cannabis
retailers in town - fears of it bringing crime, causing litter, of serving children, of leading to addiction,
of being tacky and looking like Las Vegas.
While I can’t predict what the future holds, I would like to address some of those concerns from personal experience. Over the past year, I
have visited Northampton Massachusetts several times, where cannabis has been legal since 2018, and I have spoken with people here saying that NJ regulations will be
quite similar to what is in place up there, and that current medical facilities here follow similar procedures.
First, regarding them serving children. Some have pointed out that it is really
easy for underage residents to get vaping products or even purchase beer. However, the purchasing of vapes,
alcohol and cannabis are all very different. For vapes and alcohol, there is no requirement to produce a
drivers license. A storekeeper doesn’t
have to ask you for ID if they think you are of age. So if a 16 year old looks old
enough (or if a shopkeeper just wants the sale), they can sell it without asking for ID.
Cannabis purchases are different. When you enter a dispensary, you are in a lobby with no product. A set of locked double doors prevents you from getting on to the sales floor. You need to provide your Drivers License to get further. In addition to an employee checking the photo, your drivers license is scanned using the bar code on the back. Fake IDs generally won’t scan. Once you are allowed into the showroom, you will not touch any cannabis for sale. While there may be paraphernalia on open shelves, the cannabis is kept out of site or in locked jewelry cases. You won’t be able to shoplift cannabis.
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| Cannabis comes in factory sealed packaging |
All the cannabis products for sale are pre-packaged – there is no handling of actual cannabis in the store. You can buy cannabis ‘flower’ in factory-sealed packages, cannabis pre-rolls (joints) in sealed containers, etc.
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| The Hempest, Northampton, Massachussetts. |
A dispensary looks like any other store – here is Jack’s Cannabis in Northampton Mass, in a strip mall right next to a Talbot’s. It looks like any other retail business.
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| Jack's Cannabis, Northampton, Massachussetts |
Northampton Massachusetts is a town of almost 30,000 and it now has 9 adult-use
dispensaries open. (By comparison,
Evesham has 45,000 people and has a limit of 5 dispensaries.) When cannabis was first legalized in Massachusetts, many residents there expressed the same reservations about having dispensaries in their town. Massachusetts law allowed municipalities to charge a 'community impact fee', money to be used for unforeseen issues that cannabis retailers may bring to a community - the need for added parking, increased police presence, increased 911 usage, etc.
As of January 2021, Northampton stopped collected the community impact fee.
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| Balagan Cannabis, Northampton MA |
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| The Hempest, Northampton, MA |
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Evesham Zoning Map
Resolution of Support for Sativa Wellness. The other Resolutions of Support were virtually identical.