NJ.com
The Jersey City Council voted down limiting the number of cannabis retailers at 55. (Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal)
The Jersey City Council isn’t ready to cap the number of cannabis retailers in the city as most are concerned about how the limitation would affect the southern portion of the city, which has seen little movement with the growing industry.
Councilmembers Denise Ridley, Mira Prinz-Arey, Frank Gilmore, James Solomon, and Yousef Saleh voted against the amended ordinance Wednesday night due to concerns about limiting retailers to 55. The council members were unsure if limiting the number to 55 was a good decision as it could leave the city’s most predominantly Black and Hispanic communities behind.
The council members felt there will need to be a limit set at some point to prevent the cannabis market in the city from becoming oversaturated with retailers.
“There is still a lot of questions with this ordinance …there were some concerns throughout the council over social equity,” Ridley said during the vote. “This number, 55, I don’t know if it is the right number or if it is not the right number. I certainly don’t think that we should allow as many cannabis companies as we can get in the city, I think we need to put a number on it.”
Councilmen Richard Boggiano also voted against limiting the number of cannabis retailers because 55 was “too many.” Solomon displayed concerns that the market might not support 55 businesses and agreed it could be too much, but Saleh told his colleagues it was “too little.”
“There haven’t been enough cannabis retail establishments on the southside of the city and I think ultimately the council people will start to limit it in their own wards,” Saleh said. “I don’t think we are at the place we need to be in terms of the number of establishments on the south side of the city.
“We need to do a better effort in terms of reaching out to anyone interested in creating a classified retail cannabis establishment and have an info session so they could go to the south side or other areas in the city and not just Ward D.”
Council President Joyce Watterman, whose daughter owns one of the approved cannabis retailers, abstained from the vote. Meanwhile, Councilwoman-at-Large Amy DeGise voted in favor of the amended ordinance as she felt there needed to be a limit, which could be changed in the future if needed.
City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said no city in New Jersey has been more supportive of marijuana legalization than Jersey City.
“As an example, Newark is allowing only 6 dispensaries in the entire city and at this stage, Jersey City has close to 50,” Wallace-Scalcione said Thursday. “However, if the City Council thinks that continuing with more applications is helpful, at this point we are more than happy to defer to their judgment as an administration.”
The city council vote against the cap comes as the first quarterly report from the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) showed Jersey City’s most predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood, Bergen-Lafayette, has yet to see a cannabis business approved for its ward.
It could still change for Ward F as there are still 28 applicants awaiting to be heard by the CCB.
The 27-page report, which includes the number of businesses approved in each ward, shows the Heights is the most popular neighborhood for cannabis retailers with eight new businesses, followed by the Downtown area with six. Jersey City’s West Side will see four marijuana retailers, followed by Greenville with three and Journal Square with two retailers.
While the report showed 78% (18) of the 23 retailers are minority-owned businesses, only five are Black-owned and another five are Hispanic-owned. Half of the Black and Hispanic-owned businesses are microbusinesses, which means it’s limited to 10 employees and 2,500 square feet.
Watterman on Wednesday said you can’t tell people where they can put their business. She suggested starting work incubators for small Black and Hispanic businesses to be a part of the industry.
“Because this is something that affects the Black and brown community, I think we need to do all we can to make it possible for them to start this business,” Waterman said. “When you start getting into the finance of this business, it is very expensive.”
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H/T: www.nj.com
