BRIDGEPORT — A company looking to open a year-round retail cannabis dispensary within the city’s warm-weather amphitheater is moving forward with asking for a zoning change after failing to obtain a variance in December.
Middletown-based Budr Cannabis’ original application to open up a store in the municipally-owned, privately managed music venue at 500 Main St. was rejected by the zoning board of appeals late last year.
Opened in July, 2021, the amphitheater is zoned for “civic and institutional facilities such as houses of worship, cultural or arts centers, city hall, community centers and schools.” But Budr through its local land-use attorneys, Russo & Rizio, argues the building already hosts various food, beverage and souvenir retailers that sell their goods during the May through September concert season, so there is no reason marijuana cannot be added.
Budr’s more recent application, which is pending before the Planning and Zoning Commission, asks that group to permit cannabis sale within civic buildings, but adds some conditions to limit that change to the downtown area.
And Christopher Russo, one of the lawyers working with the company, noted in an interview Tuesday that the proposed zoning amendment also limits retail marijuana sales to no more than 3,500 square feet of floor area.
“That was put in there to make sure it doesn’t go and just take over an entire property,” Russo said. “It’s really to be a supplement to whatever the main use is.”
Even if successful in obtaining the amendment, Budr, just like any other cannabis merchant, must still also apply for a “certificate of location” from the zoning commission similar to those granted businesses that sell or serve alcohol or provide vehicle sales and services. And such a certificate has to be renewed every five years to ensure the vendors are responsible and good neighbors.
In an interview last December, Russo’s partner, Ray Rizio, called the amphitheater an “ideal” location for his client.
“It does not abut a residential neighborhood,” he said. “They’re buffered by the highway, train tracks, large, (usually) vacant parking lots, yet it has great access. … This is a very unique ‘civic building’ which is why we thought we were entitled to a variance.”
Still, the two City Council members who represent that neighborhood — Jorge Cruz and Tyler Mack — in separate interviews Tuesday expressed different concerns about Budr’s latest zoning application.
H/T: https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/
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