The Jersey City Council will vote on a resolution requested by the local cannabis control board to halt hearing dispensary applications for the next six months due to the volume of applicants that have already been recommended to the council.
By John Heinis/Hudson County View
The resolution, expected to be heard Wednesday evening, notes that approximately 61 applications have been submitted to the CCB as of March 6th, with 46 approved, eight more scheduled to be heard, and another seven incomplete.
The measure also indicates that the CCB requested that the city council vote on the measure now due to several areas getting oversaturated with cannabis dispensaries.
“Whereas, the Cannabis Control Board has evaluated the applications and determined that there are a plethora of applications that are overly-concentrated in the areas of Newark Avenue, Central Avenue, West Side Avenue, Communipaw Avenue and Grand Street,” the resolution says.
“And whereas, Cannabis Control Board is concerned that the large number of applicants approved for retail locations in the City, and their concentration in certain sections of the City, may be too great for the demand for cannabis products in the City to support[.]”
The local legislation continues that the CCB asked for a six-month pause on applications to allow dispensaries with full approval to begin getting up and running, as well as that the council would not vote on applications during this time frame.
Jersey City does not currently have any legal cannabis dispenaries in operation yet, with Harmony Dispensary in Secaucus the only one in the county open thus far.
Back in November, the council voted down a cannabis dispensary cap of 55 citywide, citing equity concerns for the south side, as HCV first reported.
The Jersey City Council convenes for their caucus today at City Hall, 280 Grove St., at 4 p.m. and then their regular session on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Both meetings will stream live on Microsoft Teams.
Additionally, the CCB meets tonight at 5 p.m. inside the main conference room of the Melissa Holloway Building, located at 4 Jackson Square.
Funny how now candidate for Governor and Jersey City’s Mayor Fulop’s wife was able to move to the top of the list to open her cannabis store in a residential building in Hoboken