Alders Approve Cannabis Zoning Regs

Cannabis dispensaries can now legally set up up shop in certain business and industrial districts in town — including on Long Wharf — thanks to a new set of zoning regulations approved by the Board of Alders.

Local legislators signed off on that pot-focused zoning update Monday night during the latest regular full Board of Alders meeting, which took place in person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The 21 alders present in the room on Monday overwhelmingly approved an amended version of a zoning amendment concerning​“the responsible and equitable regulation of adult-use cannabis,” as the title of the law change puts it.

The now-adopted zoning law is virtually identical to the one that passed out of the Legislation Committee in early June.

That means that prospective cannabis retailers, micro-cultivators, hybrid retailers, food and beverage businesses, product packagers, product manufacturers, and cultivators must receive a special permit in order to operate in business and industrial districts. The law requires cannabis businesses to maintain a 500-foot distance from the boundary of a school building, as well as a 1,500-foot distance from each other. It also bans cannabis businesses from residential districts, as well as from the River Street and Hill-to-Downtown​“planning districts,” among other areas.

The final version of the zoning update does not ban cannabis businesses from the Long Wharf area, as the Elicker Administration initially sought to do. In June, committee alders heard pleas to permit cannabis businesses on Long Wharf from representatives from the New Haven Food Terminal as well as from a Springfield, Mass.-based cannabis company that is looking to move in to the soon-to-be-former home of Long Wharf Theatre on Sargent Drive.

The city’s newly approved cannabis zoning comes as municipalities across Connecticut are trying to figure out how to locally control for recreational adult-use cannabis, which the state legislature voted to legalize last year. State regulators are also still in the process of reviewing applications for a limited number of licenses for entrepreneurs interested in opening newly legalized cannabis businesses.

“Adult-use cannabis is something that is real,” Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison said before Monday’s vote. ​“It’s a law that has been approved by the state. And as a municipality, we have the responsibility to design laws that will allow our city to benefit from this new law.”

Morrison estimated that newly legalized cannabis businesses will bring in between “$3 to $4 million in extra revenue for our city” every year. She praised the zoning update for permitting cannabis businesses only in parts of the city that ​“do not interrupt” day-to-day life for most New Haveners, and for allowing for ​“increased jobs and the safe transaction of cannabis.”

The only amendment that the alders proposed and approved on Monday night limits the number of cannabis retailers allowed in town to one for every 25,000 city residents. 

For now, as Wooster Square Alder and Legislation Committee Vice-Chair Ellen Cupo explained, that means there is a de facto cap of five for the maximum number of cannabis retail stores that can open up in New Haven any time soon. 

Because the zoning update is an ordinance amendment, each alder had to call out his or her vote individually. Nineteen of the 21 alders present voted ​“yes” in support of the cannabis zoning law. Two alders — Amity/Westville/Beaver Hills Alder and Board of Alders Majority Leader Richard Furlow and Fair Haven Alder Jose Crespo — didn’t say anything when it came time for each of them to cast their votes.

Asked after the meeting why he didn’t vote on the cannabis zoning law, Furlow told the Independent that his ​“personal conviction” and religious beliefs kept him from casting a vote in support of the legalized cannabis zoning change. On the other hand, he said, as a local policymaker, he recognized the importance of New Haven city government passing a comprehensive set of zoning rules for adult-use cannabis businesses now that such activities have been legalized by the state. He said he also worked in the runup to Monday’s vote to make sure that the zoning law would pass — even though he individually didn’t cast a vote for or against it. 

Crespo, meanwhile, initially told the Independent that he missed his opportunity to vote on the matter because he was otherwise occupied when it came time for him to voice his support or objection. When asked about why he didn’t add his vote after the full board had gone through its roll call, as alders are allowed to do, Crespo declined to comment.

Click here to read the Legislation Committee-amended version of the city’s new cannabis zoning amendment in full. (This version is the same as the one passed by the alders on Monday night, except for the newly added rule that there can be only one cannabis retailer for every 25,000 city residents.) Click here, here, here and here to read previous articles about this local cannabis zoning process.