The first recreational cannabis applicant to be approved for the city of Hoboken is now seeing that approval reversed for being too close to a school.

The community group Hoboken for Responsible Cannabis filed the successful challenge against the proposed dispensary, Blue Violets, owned by Lauren Chang Thompson and her husband Max.

“It’s very frustrating. It’s a little scary,” said Thompson, the CEO. “We are just myself and my husband. We are small business owners. It is all our savings. We’ve been doing this from almost the last 2 1/2 years and it seems like it’s been almost five.”

She and her husband contend the rules for approval were changed in the middle of the process. “Originally, we weren’t allowed to be on the same block as a school, which we are not,” said Max Thompson, the COO. “And the rule was changed to say you can’t be within 600 feet of the school, which we are.”

Based on the requirement, a judge ruled in favor of Hoboken for Responsible Cannabis and vacated Blue Violets’ zoning approval.

In a statement, Hoboken for Responsible Cannabis said, “The dispensary is too close to the school – breaking our local ordinance, but when we brought it up to the city, the planning board, and our local representatives, they would not listen to us. It didn’t have to get this far; if the residents’ voices had only been heard from the beginning.”

Hoboken’s Councilman-at-Large Joe Quintero says when the city revised its ordinances prohibiting a dispensary within 600 feet of a school, it was supposed to apply to future applicants, not instances like Blue Violets where approval had already been given.

“However, it turns out the consequences of that based on the status opinion were that we essentially change the rules out from under Blue Violets’ feet,” said Quintero. “From my perspective was not the intention, but it was the result.”

Although the couple may be out of legal options for now, the Thompsons said they intend to continue fighting until Blue Violets is open.