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Conversations about cannabis resume in Lake Placid

LAKE PLACID — Conversations about cannabis resurfaced in Lake Placid recently after an Albany real estate agent called village offices to ask about the village’s application process for cannabis dispensaries.

The North Elba Town Council held its first meeting since November’s general election — when North Elba voters chose to allow dispensaries in the town — on Dec. 6. At the meeting, town Councilor Emily Kilburn Politi said she’s revisiting a draft of zoning amendments to the town and village’s joint land use code for cannabis dispensaries in the town and village. The amendments were drafted nearly a year ago by a joint town-village committee on cannabis zoning.

Kilburn Politi said that the drafted zoning amendments for cannabis business — which include giving the Lake Placid-North Elba Review Board the power to review the proposed businesses — may need to be solidified and put in place soon as interest in opening cannabis businesses here increases.

Kilburn Politi said she’d sent the proposal to village Trustee Jackie Kelly to see if the village wants to create a joint zoning amendment with the town for cannabis businesses.

Cannabis dispensaries are now legally allowed in the town of North Elba in the village of Lake Placid. Residents of the village voted to allow both dispensaries and on-site consumption within village boundaries in a special election this past March, and voters in the town of North Elba chose to allow only dispensaries — not on-site consumption — in the general election this November. Recreational cannabis was legalized statewide in March 2021.

Cannabis questions

Kilburn Politi said she revisited the proposed zoning amendments after village Code Enforcement Officer Darci Whitney told Kilburn Politi that she’d fielded a call about cannabis in the village Building and Planning Department.

Whitney said the caller was a real estate agent from Albany who asked what the village’s application process would be for someone wanting to open a dispensary in the area.

Whitney said it also sounded like the realtor was doing some “homework” on where dispensaries could be allowed to open in the village — the state has set minimum distance requirements between cannabis dispensaries and places like schools and churches.

“I think she was also trying to see if we had something more restrictive in place or not,” Whitney said.

Whitney said she didn’t know why the Albany realtor was asking about applying for dispensaries in Lake Placid. She said this was the first call the Building and Planning Department has received about applying for cannabis businesses in the village or town.

Someone wanting to open a dispensary in the town or the village would first have to submit an application to the state Cannabis Control Board. The applicant would be required to notify the town or village of their intention to open a dispensary here within at least 30 days of submitting their application with the CCB, according to the CCB’s website.

So far, the state has only accepted one wave of dispensary applications from nonprofits and people with prior cannabis-related convictions. The first 36 cannabis dispensary licenses to be issued in New York, chosen from a pool of more than 900 applicants, were announced at the end of November. While some of those dispensaries are expected to open by the end of 2022, according to The Associated Press, it’s unclear if any of them will open up in the North Country. The state authority that oversees dispensary leasing announced last week that the state’s first dispensary is opening in Harlem, according to nonprofit news outlet THE CITY.

A court ruling last month related to dispensary licensing requirements has halted the approval of dispensary licenses for some parts of the state, but the North Country wasn’t included in the ruling.

Amendments

Kilburn Politi said that after she revisited the proposed amendments and took out all prior references to on-site consumption licensing — since on-site consumption won’t be allowed in the town — she thought the proposed amendments looked “ready to go” to the town attorney for review.

“I was way ahead of myself,” Kilburn Politi said of the original document. Kilburn Politi represents the town on the cannabis zoning committee.

However, if the village opts to join forces with the town in a joint zoning amendment for the businesses, Kilburn Politi said she’d have to add considerations for on-site consumption back into the proposal.

Kilburn Politi said the amendments would provide a designated process for handling proposed cannabis businesses — proposed dispensaries would be relegated to three zoning districts, and proposals would be vetted by the Lake Placid-North Elba Review Board before a business could open shop.

According to the proposed amendments, cannabis businesses would only be allowed in the “Gateway Corridor,” “Village Center” and “Old Military Corridor” districts. The proposed amendments define cannabis businesses as a conditional use, which would require prospective businesses to go before the Lake Placid-North Elba Joint Review Board before being approved.

The amendments also state that a proposed cannabis business would be subject to review by the review board if the property for the proposed business borders a “Town Residential,” “Village Residential” or a “Rural Countryside” district.

If the amendments stay the same, they’d also prohibit dispensary owners from putting up window or outdoor displays picturing the “likeness” of cannabis — like a cannabis leaf.

The amendments also identify the state-required 500-foot distance between cannabis businesses and public or private schools, and they reiterate the state’s required 200-foot distance between cannabis businesses and religious institutions.

The amendments still need to be reviewed by the town attorney before a final draft could be put before the public in a required public hearing. Only after a public hearing could the town — and the village, if the village board opts to join the town in zoning cannabis businesses — pass the amendments into law.

Kilburn Politi said that because the amendments are so close to being ready for a public hearing, the town might not wait to pass its short-term vacation rental law before moving forward with the cannabis zoning amendments.

Town and village officials have said that they could vote on their new STR law as soon as Tuesday, Dec. 20, during the town and village’s joint meeting at 5:30 p.m. in the North Elba Town Hall.

Expectations

Town Councilor Jason Leon asked Kilburn Politi if she thought the board should be prepared to see cannabis businesses coming to town soon. She said she was “100%” sure that cannabis dispensaries are on their way. She thought Lake Placid could be the cannabis “moneymaker” of this region in the state’s eyes.

Kilburn Politi and town Supervisor Derek Doty thought the state might not allow more than one dispensary to open up in the area — Kilburn Politi thought the state might want to “space out” locations of cannabis businesses — but Leon and town Councilor Dick Cummings said they think a few cannabis dispensaries could eventually open up here. Cummings specifically noted this area’s tourism as a draw for the businesses.

With the resurfacing cannabis conversations, Leon asked his fellow board members to start considering how tax dollars from cannabis businesses could be redirected into the community. While the village would have to split taxes from any dispensary sales with the town, according to Kilburn Politi, the town wouldn’t be required to split any dispensary taxes with the village.

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