Community Boards and Cannabis
In the 1963 City Chapter, Mayor Robert Wagner began neighborhood governance. In 1990, they were granted more power regarding development in each district. I believe that community boards have their place, but I have witnessed many people who have been deemed the “power” that most people in the community might be concerned with. Ends up that people involved in politics, like power and community boards, are very political.
When given a cannabis license from the state, you must send the information, with your address, to the community board. At one point, you will be called in front of the community board for them to weigh in on the location. If you have already been granted a license tied to a locked lease, then the community board, much to their demise and unfortunately unaware, that they have zero choice. If they knew that, the conversations would be more fruitful and worthy.
This past October 4th, the state began to take another round of dispensary applications. This is open until November 15th. They suggest having a lease in hand tied to your application is a bonus. It makes sense because you will open sooner than later. There are many rules to follow, and we followed them all, including getting two leases that we are paying for while we wait with our fingers crossed to get two more licenses. We have proven ourselves already once.
There was a community board meeting this past week in one of the neighborhoods our lease is. Two applications to present to the community board were tied to two locations. I know both locations well. One of them is too close to a school to have a store, and because of that, nobody in cannabis can lease there. We have a lease on the other one, so whoever is going in front of the community board probably sees an open space and hopes to rent that place. Unclear, but how many people will go in front of community boards without leases that might never get those spots and are, in turn, wasting the community boards’ time?
I don’t think this is going to end well. It’s just another day in the world of cannabis.