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.
- Growing (any NJ state licensed cultivator),
- manufacturing,
- delivering, and
- selling retail
- selling wholesale
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.
A “Marijuana Subcommittee”
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: