For prospective cannabis entrepreneurs in Jersey City, the path to opening a dispensary can feel like a bureaucratic web of time and money, with some still waiting for more than a year to get all the necessary approvals.
But in the interest of time, Jersey City officials are considering rule changes that would cut some of the red tape and make it easier for an applicant to get approved.
The changes, which will be reviewed by the city’s planning board next Tuesday at the request of the city council, would remove the requirement for the board itself to hear cannabis applicants as long as they’re within approved city zones.
When an applicant is outside the approved zones, they would have to appear before the city zoning board.
Along with removing a bureaucratic hurdle, the changes are also meant to help ease the planning board’s load when it comes to the sheer amount of items it has on the agenda every meeting, said Councilman Yousef Saleh.
“I think that the cannabis (applicants) really puts (the board) in the weeds, no pun intended, regarding their workload,” he said. “It wasn’t really necessary for them to go through all the rigmarole, like to have a full blown hearing.”
If the changes go into effect, that will leave only at least two requirements for local approval: the local cannabis board and the city council. Upon obtaining those approvals, applicants would then be able to apply for state approval, the final major step.
The current requirement for applicants with state approval to appear before the local cannabis board a second time would also be removed under the proposed changes.
Cannabis experts and attorneys who’ve represented applicants said that they support the changes, noting that it would streamline the process and save money for those that would have spent more for planning board hearings.
Rosemarie Moyeno Matos, an attorney who has represented at least five Jersey City applicants, recalled how long the wait time can be for just one applicant to get a hearing before the planning board.
“I had one client that was on the (planning board) agenda, they had to appear four times, (and they started off at (item) number 27 on the agenda,” she said. “Their agendas are pretty stacked, and it’s taking a lot of time to process these applications.”
Scott Rudder, the interim president of the New Jersey CannaBusiness Association, said that finding property for cannabis businesses is a struggle that many people in state face, especially when it comes to getting funding compared to traditional industries.
“(Cannabis applicants) don’t have the ability to get small business loans from the federal government or traditional bank loans,” said Rudder. “The challenge for a lot of them is finding those funds, so they always have to spend a significant amount of money developing their application for the state.”
“When you add on another layer, such as going before a planning or zoning board, that is unnecessary,” he continued. “That adds additional cost and time. So, by eliminating that, helping to hopefully fast track some of these applicants, (it’s) great to see that Jersey City is doing that.”
Other significant changes to the cannabis rules that the planning board will review are the implementation of a citywide dispensary cap of 48, with a cap of eight in each of the city’s six wards, and prioritization efforts for minority- and women-owned businesses.
The city currently has a six-month moratorium in place to slow down the application process as it assesses the potential rules; any applications that were not submitted before May 15 will not be heard by the cannabis board, while the council has halted the approval of all applications.
The changes would come as the state’s second largest city is still without any open retail dispensaries more than a year after recreational sales began statewide. Harmony Dispensary in Secaucus is the only dispensary open in Hudson County for recreational sales.
Seven Jersey City cannabis dispensary applicants currently have full approval to open, while 15 other applicants could also get full approval if the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission approves them.
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