Women's Equality Day

Commercial Cannabis in Teaneck: Ordinance 29-2021

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The observance recognizing Women's Equality Day was established by Joint Resolution of Congress in 1971. Women's Equality Day is observed on the 26th day of August and commemorates the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote by prohibiting the states and the federal government from denying that right to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex.

The observance has grown to include focusing attention on women's continued efforts toward gaining full equality, exemplified by the Department of Defense's photo above, recognizing women's equality in the Armed Forces of the United States.

Teaneck Council, not so much:

On August 10th, by a vote of six to one, the Township Council passed Ordinance 29-2021, which creates a Commercial Cannabis District in Teaneck.

The Ordinance allows all five categories of cannabis business to operate in the Township.

Under the Ordinance, all these operations are confined to four lots in Block 6002 in the North East quadrant, the area known as Alfred Avenue, which is in the L-1 Light Industrial District along Route 4 East and the Englewood Border. This same Block 6002 is also slated to contain a soon-to-be-constructed six-story 244-unit apartment complex (with parking for 444 vehicles).

At that same August 10th meeting, both during the Hearing on the Ordinance and during Good & Welfare, many residents strongly objected to the Ordinance. One of their greatest concerns was: How did this ordinance come to be without any public knowledge or input?

Let us explain how a decision that significantly affects Teaneck’s residents, especially those living in the North East part of town, and our neighbor communities, appeared literally out of the blue, signed, sealed and delivered by the Township Council whose members were elected to serve the public.

We know now that the Ordinance is the handiwork of a three-person “Marijuana Subcommittee” formed at the Council’s February 23rd meeting, just two days after Governor Murphy signed into law statutes that permit commercial cannabis operations in New Jersey. The proposed and quickly approved subcommittee idea was introduced outside the agenda by Councilmember Kaplan who asserted that the item could be added late to the agenda because he had, “received communication and correspondence from residents about cannabis.”

However, an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request for Councilmember Kaplan’s emails showed only one cannabis-related communication, and that was from a firm that grows marijuana, Bloom Medicinals of Boca Raton, Florida. Councilmember Kaplan suggested that he, his colleagues, Orgen and Pagan sit on the subcommittee.

The Mayor, then, established the subcommittee at that 2/23 meeting and said he “looks forward to hearing the work that you do”.

It is possible that the Mayor heard about the sub-committee’s work, but nothing was publicly said by or about this subcommittee for the following six months – not even when the sub-committee’s proposed Ordinance was introduced on July 13.

At that meeting at the first reading of the Ordinance, Councilman Kaplan stated that that the newly introduced Ordinance needed to take a “quick jaunt” over to the Planning Board.

The Planning Board was required to certify by vote that the Ordinance was “consistent with the Master Plan”. Two days later (without the normal Master Plan consistency presentation by the Township’s Planner), the Planning Board voted 6-3 to assure Council the Ordinance was consistent with the Master Plan.

Unfortunately, the public cannot review the Planning Board’s discussion or vote because, we are told, “a mistake was made” and no video or audio recording of the Planning Board meeting exists. That is a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) and of the Division of Local Government Services rules currently governing records of virtual municipal Planning Board meetings.

Finally, at the August 10th Council meeting, little bits of the subcommittee’s activity surfaced. Councilwoman Rice probed and got this result. Click Here

The subcommittee's notes and minutes – though promised – still have not surfaced.

At the Council’s required hearing on August 10th, before its vote on the cannabis ordinance, almost all residents spoke out against the Ordinance and urged the Council to opt out of commercial cannabis at this time. The new law allows a municipality to “opt out” now, and later, at their choice, opt in. Distressingly during this hearing the Mayor intervened and announced that only residents who promised to be “pro-ordinance” would be allowed to speak.

Watch this extraordinary and improper intervention:

Compounding the secrecy surrounding the process of creating this ordinance, neither the sub-committee nor the Council mentioned that in 2018 an ordinance was introduced (then tabled) calling for Teaneck to opt out of being a host municipality to cannabis businesses if/when a law legalizing marijuana was passed. Instead, the subcommittee members claimed that Teaneck’s pro-cannabis referendum vote was a proxy for establishing cannabis businesses here!

But many Teaneck residents have said they were responding to the fact that decriminalizing cannabis would help remedy social and criminal injustices.

It feels like a case of “no good deed goes unpunished”!

The New Jersey League of Municipalities urged NJ municipalities simply to opt out now and see what regulations would be imposed and then opt in later with a better-informed set of ordinances.

And that’s what more than 70% of New Jersey’s 565 municipalities have done; they opted out, for now, to see how the Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s (CRC) regulations would affect their towns cannabis businesses before enacting commercial cannabis ordinances. Almost all the towns who did opt out had, like Teaneck, voted for the referendum.

Because of the impact of former harsh sentencing guidelines for cannabis convictions, the Cannabis Regulatory Commission acted to introduce social equity into the very first regulations adopted. On Thursday, August 20, the CRC released those first regulations that focus on the social equity aspects of the legislation.

For example, the regulations give priority to applications from “Social Equity Businesses” owned by persons who live in disadvantaged areas of New Jersey or who have past cannabis convictions. The regulations favor businesses that are minority-owned, women-owned, or disabled veteran-owned.

The regulations also favor businesses that are owned by persons, or who employ persons, who reside in an “Impact Zone,” i.e., an area with high levels of unemployment or arrests for marijuana. The regulations encourage microbusinesses, and license application fees as low as $100 for applicants who qualify.

Teaneck’s Ordinance does not reflect any of these social equity values. The Ordinance imposes a license fee of $1,000 and a one or two percent transfer tax. The ordinance does not set any limit on the number of licenses that the Township may issue, but sets no licenses aside for micro-businesses.

In short, there’s a lot wrong with Teaneck Ordinance 29-2021:

We urge residents to demand that the Council hear the residents and their concerns, and then amend the Ordinance to reflect our Township’s own social equity concerns that we now see in the recently-released State regulations.

A link to view the meeting can be found on the North East Teaneck Block Presidents Association and the East Votee Neighborhood Association Facebook pages, respectively.

As many residents now know, the Town Clerk rejected the petition twice. But he nevertheless acknowledged that 2,139 of the 3,000+ signatures submitted by One Town One Vote were indeed valid and therefore above the required threshold. This a major step forward. It reduces the legal hurdles that must be overcome in court.

The hearing is set for September 13th. The judge has issued a stay on the printing of the November ballots until this matter is resolved. If you are interested in helping defray the significant expenses incurred by One Town One Vote, please visit their website and Donate to the cause.

Teaneck Residents should consult the most recent information and guidelines

Public access by approval of the Chair only - contact Town clerk

Wednesday September 1, 2021 at 6:30pm

Public access by approval of the Chair only - contact Town clerk

Wednesday, September 1, 2021 -7:00pm

Zoom Link. Passcode=060633

Wednesday, September 1, 2021 -7:30pm

Public access by approval of the Chair only - contact Town clerk

Monday, August 30, 2021 - 4:00pm

Tuesday August 31, 2021 at 3:00pm

RSVP required. Click here

Wednesday September 1, 2021 at 6:30pm

Zoom Link Registration required