Dozens of politicians and community members rallied on Wednesday to oppose the opening of a legal pot dispensary on Staten Island, citing a lack of transparency from the state’s cannabis headquarters and rejection from the local community board.
NYS Assembly Member Michael Tannousis (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) gathered with parents, education representatives, fellow politicians and others in front of Clouditude at 4034 Hylan Blvd., to oppose the shop’s anticipated opening and demand more transparency from the NYS Office of Cannabis Management (OCM).
Although Staten Island’s Community Board 3 rejected the proposal to open Clouditude Dispensary, which replaced a decades-old hardware store that closed this year, OCM approved the licensing.
amNew York Metro contacted OCM to ask questions about the timeline of the licensing and what the agency based its approval on, but did not hear back.
Tannousis, a fierce opponent of the legalization of marijuana, said his office receives many calls and complaints protesting the opening of this and other similar legal dispensaries.
“It’s not just that this location is not a good location for a cannabis dispensary, no location is a good location for a cannabis dispensary,” he said.
The assembly member told the crowd he plans to introduce into the NYS Assembly this week a bill that would require OCM to notify the assembly and senate representing the district where the dispensary or on-site consumption location will be located within 30 days of receiving an application.
The bill would also make public the name of the applicant, location of the retail joint and other pertinent information on OCM’s website.
The state was “never ready” to open legal cannabis shops
To date, 165 adult-use cannabis dispensaries have opened in New York since the state legalized the drug in March 2021. Prospective pot retailers who want to open and operate a legal weed joint in New York must obtain a Conditional Adult-Uses Retail Dispensary (CAURD) from the OCM.
Tannousis said that Clouditude — the site in question at Tuesday’s gathering — is too close to schools, shopping centers and restaurants that families and children frequently visit.
“This site itself is compliant with the law as passed by the NYS Legislature,” he explained. “However, it is still a short distance from my alma mater, I.S. 24. I can tell you as a student at I.S. 24, myself and other students I went to school with walked around these blocks. There are other areas here where we people walk with their families.”
Meanwhile, as Tannousis spoke, a boy on a bike who appeared to be in his early teens, yelled to the crowd, “Open the pot store!”
Tannousis said the state was not ready to legalize marijuana. Among his arguments are that, unlike alcohol, there is no on-the-spot testing to determine whether a driver is operating a vehicle under the influence of the drug.
The only way, currently, for police to determine if a driver was high on marijuana after a traffic collision is through a blood test at a hospital, only after a judge grants a warrant.
Even the odor of marijuana can not be used to determine whether a driver was high when operating a vehicle.
“Ironically, alcohol, if a police officer approaches a vehicle and smells the odor of alcohol, that can be used in the courts as evidence,” NYS Assembly Member Mike Reilly (R-Staten Island), a retired NYPD officer, said.
Tannousis doubled down on his concerns.
“We were never at the point where we were going to be able to pass this type of law to have these types of dispensaries in our neighborhoods,” Tannousis said while pointing to Clouditude’s ‘Coming Soon’ sign.
Celia Iervasi, who lives nearby and is a Community Board 3 board member, said she is “totally against” Clouditude’s opening.
“I see this as a stepping stone to addiction,” she said. “I’m very familiar with addiction. I had family members who had to go into detox. To me, this is very personal. I’m so supportive of everybody here. Our borough has to have a voice heard.”
NYC: Cracking down on illegal pot shops
Meanwhile, city and state officials continue to crack down on illegal pot shops that creep up in neighborhoods around the city. Most recently, a joint operation with the NYPD and NYC Sheriff’s Office uncovered a warehouse in Astoria, Queens, that was hiding a massive amount of illegal marijuana and cannabis products.
Hundreds of pounds of product were confiscated, all with a value of $5 million.
NYC Sheriff Anthony Miranda told amNewYork Metro after the bust that the warehouse acted as a distribution center supplying products to other locations in and out of NYC.
“This is what impacts people’s quality of life on the street,” the sheriff said. “However, we have to continue the ongoing investigations to find who is supplying these stores and where it’s being stored. This is also one of the mandates of the mayor’s office. This is part of the investigations that we will continue to conduct.
To date, the sheriff’s office has closed down over 850 locations in NYC. The state has closed down an additional approximately 200 illegal pot shops.
