The town council and village board held a joint public hearing on Jan. 16. There were no comments, in person or virtual, during the 15-minute-long hearing.

Before adopting the amendments on Tuesday, the town council also passed a negative declaration in accordance with the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The negative declaration acknowledges that the new code changes do not raise environmental concerns and will not create a significant impact on the environment. The village board passed an identical declaration last month.

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Code changes

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The amendments pave the way for a standardized process for applicants to open a dispensary in the same way that there are currently standardized processes for the opening of new hotels or places or worship.

Three new conditional uses are proposed to be added to the code: “Adult-use on-site cannabis consumption,” which would apply to lounges or dispensaries where cannabis can be consumed; “adult-use retail cannabis dispensary” and “smoke shop and tobacco/vape store.”

A “conditional use” is a classification that allows the owner or lessee of a certain property to use their property in a specific way, as long as they comply with certain rules and get approval from a governing body — in this case, the Lake Placid-North Elba Joint Review Board.

These conditional uses would be available for applicants within three districts: Village Center, Gateway Corridor and Old Military Road. Village Center encompasses Lake Placid’s Main Street and the southeastern shore of Mirror Lake up to Garden Way. Gateway Corridor encompasses Saranac Avenue and Cascade Road. Outside of these districts, the new uses would not be allowed. Adult-use on-site cannabis consumption lounges would only be allowed on properties that within village boundaries.

The proposed law also includes parking requirements for the new conditional uses. A dispensary would be required to have one parking spot per 200 square feet of gross floor area in the store, while a business with on-site consumption would be required to have one parking spot per three seats, or, if there is no seating, one spot per 50 square feet of floor area available to patrons.

All three types of businesses would not be allowed to be located within 500 feet of a school or 200 feet of a church or religious institution, measured property line to property line. This is a state requirement. If the business is next to a property that’s in the Town Residential, Village Residential or Rural Countryside districts, there may be additional scrutiny by the review board. They would also not be allowed to have any outdoor or window displays of cannabis or tobacco products. The businesses’ signage may not depict the products, either. Any business that allows on-site consumption of cannabis will be prohibited from allowing smoking outdoors.

The law also includes some clarifications and corrections to language already in the code.

Village residents voted to allow both dispensaries and on-site consumption of cannabis within village boundaries in March 2022; town residents voted to allow only dispensaries in November 2022. In December 2022, town Councilor Emily Kilburn Politi said she was revisiting a draft of zoning amendments after an Albany real estate agent called village offices to ask about the village’s application process for cannabis dispensaries. The draft was written in 2021 by a joint town-village committee on cannabis zoning.

To read the local law in its entirety, visit tinyurl.com/4bep4d6e.

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Elevate ADK

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These amendments come several months after the Tri-Lakes’ first dispensary, Elevate ADK, opened in Saranac Lake.

Though Elevate ADK is located within town of North Elba boundaries, it did not have to wait for the land use code to be amended to open — within village boundaries, businesses must adhere to the village’s rules — in this case, Saranac Lake’s rules — not the town’s.

Elevate ADK opened its storefront in October after a prolonged approval process. It was supposed to open this past August, but a lawsuit held up licensing across the state over the summer.

The case came from four service-disabled military veterans who sued the state Office of Cannabis Management, arguing that the office shouldn’t be prioritizing licenses for people with previous cannabis convictions over disabled vets.

The lawsuit was settled on Nov. 27, and in early December, the OCM announced that it expected to approve around 250 licenses in early 2024. The licenses will be approved via a lottery system — the OCM received more than 1,500 applications during its application period.

There are currently 48 licensed cannabis shops in the state, up from 28 in October when Elevate ADK was allowed to open.