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BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
If you were hoping to open a business selling marijuana or vaping products or paraphernalia in the downtown retail district, call it a pipe dream.
The governing body adopted new rules July 2 on a second required reading that forbids such sales—including those for medicinal marijuana.
Also banned under an amendment to the zoning ordinance for retail sales here are hatchet throwing businesses and adult entertainment shops.
The adult entertainment shops are not expressly prohibited townwide over First Amendment considerations, explained Township Attorney Kenneth Poller.
Some towns site those businesses in an industrial zone because they are generally out of sight of other shopping and residences.
The ordinance, 18-10, amending Chapter 245 of town rules, takes effect immediately under an “emergency” provision resident Mary Ann Ozment of Adams Place asked be invoked.
The vote for the ordinance and its emergency modification was 4–1 in favor, with the dissenter calling the vape ban an overreach.
The Planning Board earlier voted unanimously in recommending the zoning rule change.
Retail outlets such as convenience stores that now sell rolling papers, vaping products, and hookahs in town are not covered under the intent of the ordinance, Poller said.
It was not likely that a police officer or zoning officer would raise a fuss at a market or convenience store over these sales, he suggested.
Applicants are still free to turn to the Planning Board for a variance, Poller said.
“It says what it says: It says these are the things that you are now not able to do. These address prohibitions in this zone, and that was the intent,” he explained.
Council President Michael DeSena, heading into the final vote, said “I think that was what we were trying to accomplish. I thank the Planning Board for their input.”
Councilman Robert Bruno voted yes without explanation.
Councilman Art Cumming said his vote in favor was out of concern for citizens’ health and safety.
Councilman Steve Cascio said the same, adding that his vote was “to protect the retail zoning of the township’s Master Plan.”
Councilman Michael Ullman, an Independent, voted no, explaining, “I believe that vaping products and paraphernalia are an extension of tobacco to a certain extent. I feel tobacco is mainstream; I think these will be mainstream.”
He added, “I understand the health concerns about youths having access to this, but there are age-related regulations or laws on the books that would prevent their sale to youths if enforced properly.”
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Recent try for smoke shop shot down hard
The landlord of Washington Town Center said at the May 30 meeting of the Planning Board that he strongly disagreed with its refusal to permit prospective tenant Cedar Smoke Shop, which specializes in vaping, saying the board ignored its own zoning ordinance permitting ordinary retail use at the site and bowed to public opinion opposed to the store.
“To push the responsibility on me to make ethical judgments on what tenants are there is an unfair request. Make your ordinance clear so I can understand it so I can conduct a business,” Town Center landlord Alexander DiChiara of Granite CPM, LLC told the Planning Board.
Hundreds of residents pressured the town to close its door to vape shops as part of a wider front against the prospect of legal marijuana sales, which Gov. Phil Murphy said he supports.
Towns countywide—indeed, statewide—have been wrestling with the prospect of those sales. Many have taken a firm “not in my backyard” stance.
The Planning Board vote was 7–0 for denying the applicant, Eddie Marji, whose extended family operates his smoke and vape shops in Lodi, Belleville, and New Rochelle and in Dobbs Ferry, New York.
Marji vowed in writing to the township that he would never sell marijuana from his store here even if the state were to legalize it. His contract with DiChiara required that clause.
The governing body said at the time it would look at blocking vape and marijuana sales here by amending the zoning ordinance.
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