Where can cannabis businesses open in Auburn? Council hears options | Local News | Auburn, NY | Auburnpub.com

The city’s assistant corporation counsel, Nate Garland, and deputy director of planning and development, Stephen Selvek, gave the presentation to Auburn City Council at its Thursday meeting.

Before they took the podium, Auburn Police Department Chief James Slayton briefed council on the Monday seizure of more than 18,000 untaxed cigarettes, THC edibles and other illegal products from the Auburn Smoke Shop at 67 Franklin St. Charges are pending, Slayton continued, and the city’s Nuisance Abatement Committee plans to review the business due to its already troublesome history.

Garland said the seizure drives home the importance of the regulations of the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, the New York state law passed last spring that legalized cannabis use and possession, and laid the groundwork for retail dispensaries, consumption sites and other cannabis businesses to open statewide. Legal retail sales are projected to begin by spring 2023.

“Whatever is sold within the city of Auburn at a retail dispensary will be regulated and sold by licensed establishments,” Garland said. “Rather than wherever the heck the multiple, dozens if not hundreds of items that Chief Slayton just described — who knows where they came from. Probably a lot of them came over in a shipping container across the Pacific Ocean, if I had to guess.” 

On the contrary, Garland continued, cannabis sold within the state will likewise be cultivated and processed within the state as part of a “New York-centric marijuana universe.” For the first half of the presentation, Garland reviewed several parts of that universe, including cannabis cultivators, nurseries, processors, distributors, delivery, dispensaries and consumption sites. 

Along with the basic functions of each business, Garland explained some of their license regulations from the state Cannabis Control Board. Cultivators, for instance, can’t hold retail licenses, and distributors can’t have economic interest in dispensaries or consumption sites. Those license holders are limited to three, and can’t also hold licenses for cultivation, processing or distribution. 

As he touched on each type of license, Garland told council where the businesses could locate in Auburn based on the city’s zoning code. Cultivators, nurseries and processors would be able to open in the Commercial, Highway Commercial, Central Corridor Commercial and Industrial zones concentrated in the north and west parts of the city, as well as much of the Grant Avenue area.

Distributors would be able to open in those zones plus Industrial-1, the city’s Technology Park area. The possible locations of delivery businesses are hazier to predict, Garland said, as the state has yet to provide regulations beyond those of the law passed last year. The same goes for microbusinesses, a “farm-to-table” type of license that allows a holder to cultivate, process and sell cannabis on a limited scale. The state is expected to prioritize minority applicants for microbusiness licenses as part of the law’s focus on social equity, allowing “the little guy to get in the game,” Garland said.

Cannabis dispensaries and consumption sites will be able to open in more areas of Auburn. They’ll be able to open just about anywhere other businesses can, including some city neighborhoods, but not within 500 feet of schools or registered day care providers, or 200 feet of churches. That removes some areas of Genesee Street, downtown and Grant Avenue, Garland said.

Though Auburn did not “opt out” of dispensaries and consumption sites, and therefore can no longer pass laws prohibiting them, the city can control their potential locations through reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, Garland said. For instance, the city could add dispensaries to its zoning code and limit them to Downtown, General Commercial and Highway Commercial areas.

Another possibility Garland and Selvek proposed is adding commercial greenhouses to the permitted uses of the Technology Park and clarifying “light industry” to include cannabis processing.

“This would allow a vertically integrated company that grows, processes and distributes cannabis to locate in largely an appropriate area in terms of neighbors, but also capture some of the tax benefits that go with starting a business in the opportunity zone,” Garland said, referring to the federal program designed to attract private investment in distressed areas.

One such company, Colorado-based Terrapin, announced plans last fall to build a cannabis production facility in the park as soon as the state licensing process allows.

Toward the end of the presentation, Selvek said he anticipates returning to council in the next few months to finalize precisely how each cannabis license will fit into the city’s zoning code. 

Garland also noted that just because cannabis businesses will have plenty of location options in Auburn, residents won’t see dispensaries and consumption sites sprouting on every corner. The state will limit the number of licenses it issues based on population and other metrics, he said, and preexisting businesses, like smoke shops, will not simply be able to add cannabis to their inventories.

“No one has a right to open up a retail marijuana dispensary,” he said. “It is a particular privilege you must seek from the board, and that privilege is going to be doled out in a very particular way.”