Middlesex County resident Dwight Brandon says when he was growing up in Ohio, he experienced first-hand the damage from the war on drugs. Now he’s a small-business owner in New Jersey, hoping to open a cannabis dispensary somewhere in the state. Like other people at the League of Municipalities conference, he’s trying to learn more about a new industry.
This year’s conference was the first held after recreational cannabis stores opened statewide. Ron Mondello, trustee of the New Jersey Institute of Government Attorneys, says there’s a lot of confusion about what’s legal and what’s not, and he says leaders at the municipal level have a ton of questions. They’re not alone.
“A lot of the owners of warehouses, if you want to do a cultivator and you want to grow inside a warehouse, a lot of those guys don’t believe in cannabis and they’ll gouge you. They don’t have to lease to you, because they’ve got a trucking company coming in, or they have ShopRite,” said Brandon.
“I think delivery is a space that has a lot of gray area. I know that right now, there are certain businesses that are delivering cannabis, but it’s under a guise of ‘you purchase a brownie, and then you’re gifted the cannabis,’ said Aziza McGill-Ayinde, chair of East Orange Cannabis Board.
When Phil Murphy first ran for governor five years ago, legalizing cannabis was part of his platform. The rest of his platform was under review by four former governors at a separate panel.
