Southampton Weighs Sites for Weed Sales

The Southampton Town Board took time during Tuesday’s regular meeting to consider amending the town code to accommodate the possible arrival of cannabis dispensaries and on-site pot lounges in town. Turns out it’s a pretty contentious issue even after the town voted along with more than 600 other towns across the state to participate in New York’s newly legalized cannabis economy. 

Supervisor Jay Schneiderman had previously introduced the ordinance  — which among other things, would create wide setbacks for would-be cannabis businesses near schools, churches, and town greens, and codify the town’s posture insofar as where and how cannabis businesses could operate. 

His suggestions faced pushback from fellow board members and members of the public who showed up at the meeting. Those proposals included allowing dispensaries or pot lounges in unincorporated parts of the town, which could result in pot businesses springing up in the downtown hamlets of Bridgehampton or Hampton Bays.

This was not welcome news to Councilman Rick Martel, who said that nobody wanted those businesses in downtown village settings. Nor did it hold sway with Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara, who had argued during the board’s work session against proposed zoning changes to allow the businesses in downtown settings or along busy roads.

Mr. Schneiderman told the board that his initial inclination had been only to allow for pot businesses in areas zoned as light industrial, but subsequently added village business and highway business as possible go-zones, given the challenges of siting the businesses in light-industrial areas with few qualifying structures. 

Ms. McNamara’s view was that the town should take its time considering the proposals, as she suggested that her fellow elected officials be “as restrictive as we can” when it came to the zoning and other proposals put forward by Mr. Schneiderman.

Ms. McNamara also highlighted concerns over an increase in traffic because Southampton could wind up having “the only dispensary between Riverhead and Montauk.”

Michelangelo Lieberman, a town planner, addressed the board and Ms. McNamara’s concern by suggesting that if traffic was an issue, the board should reconsider the proposed ban on dispensaries in shopping centers. “That makes more sense to me than in the villages,” said Ms. McNamara. 

Mr. Lieberman also addressed Mr. Martel’s concern by likening would-be pot dispensaries to Starbucks and said, “If we look at it as just a retail use — there could be up to 500 customers a day, and like a Starbucks, we wouldn’t want it in a residential zone.” He said it was wiser to “keep it in a village business [zoned area] where the consumer culture would extend beyond that use.”

“Downtown areas will have a hard time meeting the setbacks,” Mr. Shneiderman said. “Even though you have village business zoning, there’s no properties that meet it,” given the highly restrictive setbacks the town is proposing, which may run afoul of the state’s own upcoming setback guidance from the Office of Cannabis Management. 

Mr. Schneiderman also stressed to the board and attendees that they were restricted from engaging in a de facto ban on cannabis through zoning. “We are going to have to find somewhere for it to go,” he said.

Complicating matters for the town, Mr. Schneiderman said, is that “the Shinnecocks are well on their way to opening several dispensaries at the reservation,” and that it was unfair to town residents with an interest in participating in the cannabis economy to be shut out of it.

The supervisor also explained the challenges of restricting cannabis businesses to areas of town zoned as light industrial. As a practical matter, setback and other restrictions meant that only a few existing buildings in the town’s light-industrial areas would qualify under the proposed setback regime, and essentially give an unfair competitive advantage to the owner or landlords of those properties, said Mr. Schneiderman.  

That issue was amplified in comments from several interested parties in Water Mill. Robert Fischette, an attorney, said he was representing the owner of the Water Mill Square at 670 Montauk Highway, which has about 20 retail and commercial tenants.

He took issue with the town’s restrictive zoning proposals near town greens, in particular the Water Mill’s Village Green.

“It appears it is owned by the Water Mill Village Improvement Association, but is that a village green, a park? It leaves it vague and my client’s eligibility unknown,” said Mr. Fischette. He also argued that the “state has arguably neutered the issue locally,” given that state liquor laws “pre-empt local zoning laws” when it comes to setbacks — and the state has modeled its proposed setback regulations on guidance already in place when it comes to liquor stores.

The town’s proposed amendments would “unfairly limit Water Mill,” Mr. Fischette said.

Matthew Schweber, another attorney, amplified Mr. Fischette’s concerns as he told the board that its proposed ordinance was premature and that the “state needs to release its regulations first. Many of the provisions would be iced out by the [state] regulations,” in its Marihuana Taxation and Regulation Act.

The act mirrors the state’s alcohol-control law, Mr. Schweber said, which requires that towns show demonstrated impacts when they’ve regulated the time, place, and manner in which liquor stores are allowed to operate. “That hasn’t been done in this ordinance at all,”  Mr. Schweber said, urging the board to “wait for the state to release its dispensary and consumption lounge regulations within the next 90 days.” The town, he said, doesn’t want to “have lawsuits from people who have been relegated to the margins or barred entirely.”

Benjamin Rinzler, who owns Water Mill Square, also spoke up and said he was “excited and happy the town did not opt out and expected I would be given equal crack at this to have a dispensary as a tenant.” He was “disheartened” at the apparent exclusion of Water Mill via the restrictive zoning proposed around the green.

There was lots of pushback to the entire prospect of legal weed sales in Southampton. Gail Lombardi told the board that she was “flabbergasted by the conversation,” and took umbrage at Mr. Lieberman’s characterization of pot sales being akin to other retail operations. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “We didn’t opt out but we can’t zone out? Why not?”

She highlighted an oft-repeated concern about children accessing cannabis or cannabis products. “We tell our children, ‘this is your brain, the egg, your brain on drugs’ — but we’re saying it’s okay to have recreational marijuana in our community? It’s really a big problem.”

Kim Laube, the executive director of Human Understanding and Growth Services, an addiction resources agency based in Westhampton, was similarly opposed to the decision to opt in. “This is a public health threat to us,” said Ms. Laube. “No, we don’t want it in the hamlets, and no we don’t want to normalize it on Main Street.”

Mr. Schneiderman reiterated several times to opponents that “the only decision before us was where you could purchase it,” in light of the state legalizing recreational possession and use. “If there’s nowhere else [to buy it], all the traffic that’s on Montauk Highway is going to the reservation. And nobody in the community could participate in the economic benefits.”

After multiple rounds of criticism and concern over the proposed ordinance, Mr. Schneiderman said he would put off a vote until Oct. 11. He said the board would revisit the proposed ban on dispensaries in shopping centers and wait to see whether the state’s setback regime would be in line with the town’s proposals. “It’s easy to pick the wrong places,” Mr. Schneiderman said, “but not the right places.”