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A “vocal minority” of residents in a small, well-to-do Westchester town just north of New Canaan, Conn., are demanding municipal officials rethink allowing cannabis retail within its borders – over two years after the deadline to opt out.
Pound Ridge Town Supervisor Kevin Hansan told NY Cannabis Insider that the Dec. 31, 2021, deadline for municipalities to opt out of cannabis retail came and went without incident. But after a prospective adult-use dispensary began renting space in the town’s business district, some residents started calling for a municipal ban on adult-use retail.
Responding to the concerns of residents opposed to cannabis dispensaries in Pound Ridge, the Town Board ordered a temporary pause on issuing the approvals a dispensary would need to open in the business district. But despite calls from locals for a re-opening of the opt-out period, state regulators say that ship has sailed.
“The Office has communicated to the town of Pound Ridge that a retroactive opt-out is not allowed in State Law,” an OCM spokesperson told NY Cannabis Insider.
Hansan, who has been the town’s supervisor since 2018, said the issue isn’t being driven by the government. Instead, he said, “This is a vocal minority who are two years late to the party.”
Hansan and other town officials didn’t give much thought about the opt-out period – during which time municipalities could hold votes to ban adult-use weed retail within their borders – after it came and went two years ago, he said.
Cannabis legalization never seemed like a topic of interest in the 23-square-mile town of about 5,000 residents, Hansan said, and it seemed doubtful to him and others that anyone would want to open a shop in a small town where the median age of 51 is significantly older than New York’s statewide median of 39 – according to 2022 Census data.
“I never would have anticipated this would be one of the first sites that somebody would want to open in, because we’re so far off the beaten path,” Hansan said. “Why would you pick Pound Ridge? Our business district is really small.”
Unlikely or not, Hansan believes a dispensary would likely be a net-positive for the community, especially considering the additional tax revenue it would generate. But residents who showed up to a pair of community meetings in December saw things differently.
During a Dec. 5 public hearing, opponents of cannabis retail in Pound Ridge greatly outnumbered those who supported it. People who testified criticized members of the Town Board and other government officials for failing to opt out in 2021, just before board members issued a moratorium on issuing land use permits for Pound Ridge’s business district.
The Town Board held an additional public hearing on Dec. 9 to discuss potential zoning legislation on retail cannabis business activity in town. At that meeting, residents raised concerns about how a dispensary would affect the town’s “character,” alleged negative effects to property values, and brought up other issues.
One person who testified called on the entire five-person Town Board to resign, alleging they made a decision to opt in without holding a public meeting (municipalities did not opt in to cannabis sales – they had to affirmatively opt out to ban adult-use retail).
After the meeting, Pound Ridge’s town attorney wrote a letter to the Office of Cannabis Management, inquiring if municipalities can opt out of adult-use retail, despite the long-passed deadline.
They cannot, OCM said.
Dr. Lynn West, a physician who prescribes medical cannabis and lives in neighboring Bedford, attended both public hearings. She told NY Cannabis Insider that some locals seem to be convinced they can still change the town’s default decision to opt in.
“They think the town assembly person can reverse everything for them; they don’t really understand the OCM, and the MRTA,” West said. “The town didn’t quite grasp that for the old guard, it’s a big whoop.”
West, who has lived in the area for about 35 years, said most of the area’s long-term residents skew older and more conservative. In recent years, there’s been an influx of younger families moving to the area – many from Brooklyn – which has created some uneasiness, she said.
“You have people living up here for 40 years, 50 years, and they get very territorial. they’re a little outraged about all the Brooklyn wealth coming in,” West said. “You also have to remember, up here was pretty conservative until recently … now things have shifted tremendously.”
Hansan, too, said a lot of the recent uproar over cannabis retail in Pound Ridge amounts to standard-issue small town bickering.
“This is 100% politically motivated, because they want to take over the town government and do something different – but frankly, they lost,” Hansan said. “I suspect some of them, even if we had opted out, would have used the same political position, and say, ‘how come you didn’t allow the [tax] revenue?”
However, perceived missteps by the OCM and CCB haven’t helped the situation, Hansan said. Disruptions to New York’s legal weed rollout stemming from viable lawsuits against regulators have raised eyebrows, and problems recently cited by Gov. Kathy Hochul have also drawn attention, he said.
Additionally, Hansan said, the fact that regulators issued the first retail licenses to businesses in the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary program – which is for “justice-involved” people, who have been convicted of some cannabis-related crimes – made the issue easy for people to demagogue.
“That made it more of an easy challenge to raise people’s concerns: ‘all these drug dealers are coming around,’” Hansan said. “It’s easy to rile people up,” he chuckled, “It’s easy!”
For the sake of being responsive to concerned residents, Hansan said, the town has passed a resolution saying Pound Ridge will not oppose any state action to revisit the opt-out deadline period. However, he doesn’t think a large portion of the town will be upset if a weed shop eventually opens in town.
“The majority of the town, I still feel quite confident, is mature enough to handle this,” Hansan said.