STAMFORD — Looking to avoid litigation, the Stamford Zoning Board will allow a cannabis company — whose special permit application it overwhelmingly rejected in June — to open a dispensary in Bull’s Head.
Earlier this month, the board voted 3-2 to approve a settlement with craft cannabis company Sweetspot. The company, whose owners hail from Stamford, sued the board in July, alleging that they acted “illegally” and “arbitrarily” in denying the proposal.
Board members and Land Use Bureau staff discussed the matter in a closed, executive session with legal counsel on Oct. 16, before taking the vote. Board members David Stein, Rosanne McManus and William Morris voted in favor, while Gerald Bosak Jr. and alternate member Racquel Smith-Anderson opposed the decision.
Stein moved to approve the settlement “for the reason that the terms of the settlement address the board’s traffic, location and public safety concerns by imposing various conditions on the applicant’s use.”
Among those conditions are:
- Having a police officer manage traffic on High Ridge Road “for up to four months after the business opens;”
- Requiring the business to evaluate and remediate any potential traffic impacts;
- Having private security on site for four weeks after its grand opening;
- Allowing the board to restrict and regulate the facility’s hours of operation;
- Prohibiting a smoke shop from opening up nearby as long as the dispensary is there.
Sweetspot will be Stamford’s third dispensary. Company co-founder Jason Webski and marketing director Tom Lew did not respond to requests for comment.
Settling the lawsuit was a shrewd decision, Land Use Bureau Chief Ralph Blessing said.
The Zoning Board’s June decision did not align with its earlier January decision to permit Curaleaf on East Main Street, Blessing said. Since June, the board has instituted regulations exclusive to recreational cannabis, which has been legal in Connecticut since 2021. But at the time of the Sweetspot rejection, the board was working within its most similar regulations — medicinal marijuana criteria.
“What happened with Sweetspot — and it probably would have been the argument in the lawsuit — was that the Zoning Board didn’t apply the same standards to those two applications,” Blessing said. “Even if it’s a special permit, you have to have good reasons for not applying the standards or there has to be consistency in the decision-making process.”
Legally, Blessing said, zoning regulations are applied “like a judicial process.”
“You have a list of requirements for approving a special permit and you go down the list. And, if you think you check the boxes or most of the boxes, then you have to give them the special permit (whether) you like it or not,” Blessing said.
Later during the meeting, officials held their first public hearing for Nautilus Botanicals, a proposed dispensary for 1110 East Main Street. Nine people voiced their opinions, a noticeable decrease from the 46 people who weighed in during Sweetspot’s hearing in May.
If Nautilus is approved, then the city would only be able to approve one more hybrid cannabis retailer, in accordance with its own self-imposed regulations adopted in July. The rules limited Stamford to one recreational retailer for every 25,000 residents, and created distance requirements from all schools.
Connie DeBoever — who works for Merida Capital, the private equity firm with whom Nautilus is partnering — asked board members and residents to separate their personal feelings about cannabis from the zoning criteria.
“I understand that not everyone feels the same, so I hope we can agree to disagree here. We’re not here to break families apart or destroy family values,” Deboever said. “We view cannabis as a medicine for many, and as an alternative relief akin to alcohol for others.”
In particular, people expressed concerns about the site’s limited parking. The site would have six parking spaces and 10 more spaces several blocks away.
Documents submitted to the board Wednesday by land use attorney Lisa Feinberg show that the company is taking steps to alleviate parking concerns.
According to the filing, recreational sales would only be permitted using online ordering for the business’s first six months. Medical sales only would be allowed from 2-4 p.m. on Monday through Friday. And company officials are committing to providing a delivery service, either in-house or through a third-party service.
H/T: https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/
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