Long Island Cannabis dispensary stuck in zoning limbo
When Brian Stark found out his application for a cannabis retail dispensary license was one of the first to be approved in New York, he was thrilled.
Then came zoning limbo.
The state approved Stark’s application and 27 others in November through the Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary program, which offers licenses to business owners impacted by past cannabis convictions.
But six months later, Stark is still struggling to find a good retail location in Long Island.
Out of the few Long Island towns that did not opt-out of having dispensaries, many of them have local zoning restrictions that make setting up shop nearly impossible, Stark said.
“There’s probably not enough real estate for 40 of us,” he said. “It’s not even enough real estate, probably, for 20 of us.”
As of its May 11 meeting, the state’s Cannabis Control Board has approved 215 CAURD licenses, with 39 of them in Long Island.
Some Long Island towns, like Brookhaven, will only approve dispensary locations in industrial spaces, pushing cannabis businesses away from prime residential areas with steady customer traffic, said Stark, who has lived on Long Island for most of his life and now resides in Merrick.
At other locations, landlords weren’t comfortable with cannabis being in the building or there weren’t enough parking spaces available for a retail location, he said.
Stark could opt to settle in an industrial area, but without clarity on when local zoning regulations could ease up or tighten further, choosing a bad location now seems risky, he said.
“We don’t know where to go,” Stark said. “Everybody’s worried. Even if they have a location, they’ve still got a question mark: do they want to go forward? Because it might not be an available location in six months to a year depending on what happens in the next few months.”
Stark decided to pivot his business strategy to be a delivery service to avoid more hold ups, he said.
New York’s Office of Cannabis Management approved Stark’s application for a delivery service and newly picked location in Babylon on May 4. He has a vision and a website ready to go for his business, which he’ll rename Metropolis Cannabis instead of Brian Stark Enterprises LLC.
All that’s left to do is to see what the town’s zoning requirements will be, Stark said.
The OCM’s guidance for retail dispensaries, including guidance on locations, is still unofficial because the regulatory process is ongoing, said OCM Executive Director Chris Alexander.
With another 45-day public comment period ahead for the draft regulations, it could be months before the guidance is official, Alexander said in an April interview.
“It is currently an issue that our regs are not yet final, and so the ability of the board to identify any of these local schemes as ‘unpractical’ or ‘unreasonable’ … is not yet in effect,” he said.
The OCM’s guidance would allow municipalities to establish areas for dispensaries to operate as long as municipalities don’t marginalize them into disadvantageous spaces, but part of the problem is cannabis’ stigma, Alexander said.
The OCM can’t change the minds of individual landlords, but they can make sure localities know how and why they want to create space for new dispensaries, he said. The OCM launched a public education campaign in April to prepare the market for these new businesses on the way.
As local planning boards and the public see other dispensaries thrive across New York, Alexander hopes more towns will opt in and change their positions.
“Our job is to make sure this program can roll out effectively,” he said. “The stigma can get in the way of that, but we’ve got to work through it.”
Alexander added that New York’s latest dispensary licensees are creative and persistent, and licensees might start advocating to local planning boards themselves to effect change, too.
Stark said he found his footing throughout the past months through mentorship and community.
Police first arrested him for a cannabis sale and possession in high school, but other cannabis-related charges qualified him for CAURD, he said.
Now, Stark attends weekly meetings with other new licensees through Our Academy, a nonprofit mentorship program for cannabis businesspersons affected by the War on Drugs.
“It feels good, it’s a full circle,” Stark said. “I think in some way, I actually deserve this, so maybe it was always meant to be. All the little trouble I got in as a kid worked out.”
Stark believes New York’s legal cannabis industry can go far if dispensaries can find good locations.
“It’s just getting in a location that’s going to be viable down the road,” he said.
