Hoboken is gearing up for New Jersey’s Aug. 21 deadline for municipalities to establish local cannabis guidelines to preempt state rules.
Up for consideration are prohibitions on any non-retail cannabis facilities — such as cultivators or manufacturers — and a five-facility citywide limit for both recreational and medical facilities.
Municipalities that do not pass legislation by Aug. 21 will operate under a set of state rules for five years.
A slurry of ordinances are pending before the City Council, and Councilmember Mike Russo, who is sponsoring them, said they may be carried at Wednesday’s meeting.
Several of the ordinances simply lay the groundwork for license applications and approval processes. One, for example, establishes a $15,000 annual licensing fee. Another would broaden the focus of the city’s Medical Cannabis Review Board to all cannabis facilities, medical and recreational.
Others, however, may still be up for debate.
The five-facility limit was one Russo said may welcome discussion. Under that ordinance, there would be a maximum of five cannabis retail facilities citywide, regardless of whether they sell medical cannabis, recreational cannabis or both.
Prohibiting any non-retail licenses, which would include cultivators, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributers and deliverers, was first proposed at the City Council’s May 19 meeting.
It’s likely that companies aren’t even interested in opening cultivation facilities in Hoboken, where space is tight and rents are high, said Police Chief Ken Ferrante, who personally met with each business that applied to open a Hoboken medical dispensary.
Of the approximately 20 business that applied for medical cannabis licenses in Hoboken between 2017 and 2020, few, if any, wanted to grow marijuana here, said Ferrante.
“I don’t remember any of them stating that they wanted to grow onsite in Hoboken because of the size of the facility and what the rents are,” Ferrante said.
A five-facility limit to start doesn’t raise any red flags for him, he said. The City Council may be hoping to get a pulse on how much traffic the retailers bring in before potentially welcoming in more stores, he said.
“After meeting with all the applicants, I felt a lot more comfortable about this process and these owners and these sites opening up,” the chief said.
Hoboken has been among the most cannabis-friendly municipalities in Hudson County. Some, like Union City, are doubling down on bans on marijuana facilities.
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