This post was originally published on this site.
Coming on the heels of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top-to-bottom shake-up of the Office of Cannabis Management, a lawsuit filed on Friday takes aim at a key regulation in the state cannabis law.
Filed in State Supreme Court in Albany, the legal action brought by the New York City law firm Prince Lobel challenges a state regulation that establishes proximity buffers between licensed shops — as well as proposed cannabis dispensary locations.
Acting on behalf of Gracious Greens – a minority-owned, social equity cannabis license applicant denied permission to operate at a commercial location in New Paltz – lawyers David Holland and Andrew Schriever told NY Cannabis Insider that they weren’t looking to arm wrestle with OCM or the state.
“We’re not looking for trouble. We weren’t looking to file a lawsuit,” Schriever said, but when it became apparent that the state “was trampling on the self-determination rights of a town,” the attorneys initiated the action, he said.
The melee in New Paltz — which was first described in a NY Cannabis Insider article in June 2023 — emanated from three different parties wishing to open cannabis dispensaries on the same stretch of a street in the Village of New Paltz. (Nearly one year later, there are still no retail cannabis shops operating in either the village or town of New Paltz.)
Gracious Greens says it took out a lease on 87 North Chestnut Street that had already received a special-use permit from the village for retail cannabis sales.
Then Gracious Greens was notified via email in late January by the mayor of New Paltz that they couldn’t open a dispensary at their location because it was only 600 feet from an already approved site (a former Stewart’s Shop) across the street.
The state regulation in question requires a 2,000 foot buffer zone between cannabis dispensaries operating in a municipality of less than 20,000 people.
Gracious Greens was told that the Stewart’s Shop, which has been vacant for some time but is undergoing renovations, was a “protected” site that had received funding from the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY), along with OCM approval, for conversion into a retail cannabis store.
Stephen Van Ostrand, one of the owners of Gracious Greens, said “having invested six figures from my own family savings into this process … it’s very upsetting to now stand to lose everything we put in because the OCM is protecting … competing dispensary applicants.”
“It’s sad,” he told NY Cannabis Insider, that “after working so hard to get to the finish line, the OCM would knowingly bump us out to protect nearby locations that were not made public.”
New Paltz Supervisor Neil Bettez told NY Cannabis Insider it was his “understanding” that the owner of the shuttered Stewart’s Shop had been given the green light by the state.
A village official confirmed that a special-use permit was approved for the site a few months ago.
The legal challenge to state regulations is focused on the following:
- The buffer zone requirement was too vague and failed to indicate to a prospective applicant whether their location passed muster since OCM did not reveal where potential dispensary locations were — only ones that were already up and running.
- The litigants also maintain that the state is violating the Home Rule rights of the municipality.
“Absent a specific act by the legislature, OCM does not have the authority to grant proximity protection to any cannabis business,” Schriever said.
“Determination of siting should remain the exclusive right of the municipality,” he added, with the exception of setback requirements “for schools and places of worship, as set forth in the cannabis law.”
Gracious Greens, “like many others around the state,” Schriever said, “did everything by the book, and played by all the rules,” but ended up with the short end of the stick.
Neither the OCM, nor the state Attorney General — also named in the lawsuit — responded to a request for comment.