BRIDGEPORT — The company behind a proposal to open a retail cannabis dispensary in the city’s amphitheater may pursue a zoning change after its application was rejected.
“That is one of the possibilities we’re looking at,” said Raymond Rizio, the land use attorney representing Middletown-based Budr, which hopes to add the site in Bridgeport to its Danbury, West Hartford and Tolland locations.
But Budr’s proposal was rejected by the city’s zoning board of appeals at its meeting last week. Although, Rizio said, three of the five members were for it, the rules require a minimum of four votes.
Specifically his client was seeking a zoning use variance because the current regulations do not allow a dispensary at the municipally owned, privately managed amphitheater. The venue opened in summer 2021 between downtown and the South End at the former site of the city’s minor league baseball stadium.
In July, 2022 a different land-use board — the zoning commission — loosened Bridgeport’s then-restrictive rules governing Connecticut’s fledgling recreational marijuana industry to allow retail sales along a majority of the city’s commercial strips. But the amphitheater at 500 Main St. is zoned, according to the city’s website, for “civic and institutional facilities such as houses of worship, cultural or arts centers, city hall, community centers and schools.”
Budr’s application to the appeals board claimed a “hardship” because other retailers — food, beverage and souvenirs — already operate there during the May through September concert season. The dispensary, if approved, would not be open just during performances but maintain regular daily, year-round business hours.
Russell Liskov, the municipal attorney who advises Bridgeport’s land-use boards, said just because a particular use is not allowed does not mean an applicant is experiencing a hardship.
“Say I’m in a residential neighborhood but I want to have a manufacturing plant in there,” he said. “Just because you want to do something doesn’t mean you get to do something. … You can still use that property for ‘x,y,z’ and just can’t use it for ‘e,f,g.'”
Liskov said he would not be surprised if Rizio and Budr, who have the option of challenging the appeals board decision in court, instead try to amend the zoning for the amphitheater property to accommodate a dispensary.
Rizio argued it is “an ideal” location.
“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.”
Local developer Howard Saffan in 2017 partnered with Mayor Joe Ganim’s administration to transform the then 20-year-old shuttered baseball stadium into the live music venue and currently manages the property. Saffan submitted a letter of support for Budr to become his sub-tenant.
“The amphitheater has been a tremendous economic boost to downtown Bridgeport, but one of the shames is that it only draws patrons during events even though there is a tremendous amount of parking available to support uses on ‘off-hours,'” he wrote.
Saffan noted that the amphitheater “already sells a cannabis water product” at concerts and that having a dispensary on site would be no different than selling alcohol to ticket goers. Those who choose to smoke the product at events would have to abide by the venue’s rules for nicotine use.
“Just as we screen to ensure patrons who purchase alcohol are legal to do so, the patrons of the dispensary will go through even greater security measures,” Saffan wrote.
This is the second attempt to install a secondary tenant inside the amphitheater. Saffan had previously been in talks with the Connecticut Lottery Corporation to locate a sports betting operation there, but the sides did not reach an agreement.
Over the last several months a handful of dispensaries have received zoning approvals for other neighborhoods in Bridgeport, including three represented by Rizio, but so far none have opened.
You can view the whole article at this link.
