Nature’s Touch, a Hoboken medical cannabis business that is alleging in a Hudson County Superior Court lawsuit that a “bribe” quashed their license, can proceed, the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division ruled today.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The underlying dispute concerns the City of Hoboken’s (the City) denial of plaintiff’s application to operate a medical marijuana dispensary. Plaintiff initially received a favorable recommendation from the City’s Cannabis Review Board (the Board) in January 2022,” Appellate Court Judges Robert Gilson, Lisa Perez Friscia, and Robert Vinci wrote today.
“That same month, however, Mayor [Ravi] Bhalla refused to sign the required letter of support, effectively blocking plaintiff’s application. Plaintiff asserts that it was unaware of any actionable basis to contest Mayor Bhalla’s decision until May 2024, when allegations surfaced in a lawsuit brought by a former City employee, Pantaleo Pellegrini, that Mayor
Bhalla had accepted a bribe not to recommend plaintiff’s application to operate a medical marijuana dispensary.”
Nature’s Touch filed suit in July 2024, citing the aforementioned claims by Pellegrini, who entered his own litigation with the city in May 2024 alleging quid pro quo, retaliation, and defamation before pleading guilty to embezzlement last December, all as HCV first reported.
“According to Pellegrini’s complaint, at a January 14, 2022 meeting, Mayor Bhalla stated that he had received a phone call from Mayor Fulop of Jersey City and Mayor Fulop was ‘extremely upset and very angry’ about the Board’s decision to support Nature’s Touch’s application because his wife planned to open a medical cannabis dispensary in the City,” the appellate decision summarizes.
“At the same meeting, Mayor Bhalla allegedly stated he would be ‘quashing’ Nature’s Touch’s application and that, in exchange, Mayor Fulop promised to provide legal work for Mayor Bhalla’s private law firm. Plaintiff also asserts that Mayor Fulop’s wife is a co-owner of Story Dispensary of Hoboken, LLC (Story Dispensary), and on February 24, 2022, the City’s Board approved Story Dispensary’s application to operate a medical cannabis retail business in the City.”
While Story Dispensary, where Jaclyn Fulop is a co-owner of the building, received all of the necessary approvals from the City of Hoboken, they were never heard by the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission (NJCRC) and therefore have yet to open.
The dispute at hand, from the appellate court’s perspective, revolves around the timeliness of the tort claim Nature’s Touch issued to the City of Hoboken on May 17th, 2024 – the trial court ruled that it was on September 27th, 2024.
The city and Bhalla appealed, arguing that a tort claim must be filed within 90 days to one year from when a case of action took place – in this case when their Hoboken Cannabis Review Board rejected their application in January 2022.
Conversely, Nature’s Touch argued that their cause of action did not take place until May 2024 when Pellegrini’s allegations were made in his lawsuit and the appellate court agreed.
“Although plaintiff knew in January 2022 that the Mayor did not issue a letter advancing its application, plaintiff did not know until May 2024 that the Mayor allegedly took that action maliciously. To accept defendants’ position would encourage potential claimants to file tort claim notices even if they had no basis to believe the governmental action was illegal,” today’s ruling says.
” … In other words, potential claimants would file notices and then go on a fishing expedition to see if there had been wrongful governmental action or inaction. It would not be consistent with the TC Act nor good public policy to encourage notice of claims that do not have a good faith basis.”
Bhalla, whose term expires tomorrow before he is sworn in as an assembly for the 32nd Legislative District, said the claims are completely meritless.
“This complaint stems from false claims brought by a convicted felon. They are frivolous in nature and the City will continue to vigorously defend this matter in court,” he said in a statement.
2nd Ward Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher, a staunch critic of Bhalla who unsuccessfully ran for mayor and also adamantly opposed the opening of Story Dispensary, disagreed with that assertion.
“In my humble opinion, these claims are not frivolous and once again Hoboken taxpayers have to pay the price for Mayor Bhalla’s wrongdoing,” she began.
“The evidence and timing suggests otherwise: Ravi denied Nature’s Touch with no reason given after CRB approved unanimously, Story Dispensary was subsequently approved, and Ravi’s law firm was then awarded a no-bid contract from the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency (JCRA) for the first time ever within weeks. I believe discovery will prove this out.”