BRIDGEPORT — Frankie’s Diner owner and community leader Nick Roussos has no qualms with the prospect of having a recreational cannabis dispensary open near his Barnum Avenue restaurant.
“I’m not a pot smoker,” Roussos said. “But I’m happy they’ll come get their cigarettes and then come to the diner and eat.”
This past week, Florida-based Ayr Wellness became the latest company to receive local planning and zoning commission approval to open up a retail cannabis location in Connecticut’s largest city. Ayr and its in-state partners, including Tiana Hercules, an attorney and former Hartford city council person, will renovate a decades-old bank building at 1640 Barnum Ave. that briefly also served as a now-vacant walk-in medical facility.
“They satisfied all of the requirements for the proper location for the site,” Russell Liskov, a municipal attorney who staffs the zoning board, said of Sept. 30’s affirmative vote by its members
