JANUARY 2022 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 13
RECREATIONAL MARIJAUNA SALES
MOST LI LOCALITIES OPT OUT
BY TIMOTHY BOLGER
More than 80% of Long Island’s town,
village, and city governments have
voted to opt out of allowing newly legalized
recreational marijuana to be
sold at pot shops or cannabis cafes in
their communities.
Of the 110 localities total across Nassau
and Suff olk counties, 89 had passed optout
legislation in the days before the
Dec. 31, 2021 deadline that New York
State gave local lawmakers to decide if
they want in or out. Boards that opted
out include those in nine of the 13 towns,
both of the two cities — Long Beach and
Glen Cove — and at least 80 of the 95
villages on LI, although offi cials in at
least nine villages that declined to opt
out said they didn’t bother because
they are strictly residential and have
no commercial establishments where
a dispensary could open anyway, such
as the tiny Village of Asharoken on a
North Shore isthmus.
“The only thing we would be opting out
of would be the sales tax revenue,”
said Southampton Town Supervisor
Jay Schneiderman, who leads one of
the four towns that opted in. The other
three are the towns of Riverhead,
Brookhaven, and Babylon, although
some villages that fall within those
town borders opted out, such as the
villages of Lindenhurst, Port Jeff erson,
and Quogue.
State lawmakers legalized in March the
growing, consuming, and possession
of recreational marijuana possession,
but gave towns, villages, and cities until
New Year’s Eve to opt out of allowing
sales. Growing, consuming, and possessing
marijuana remains legal in the
communities that opted out of allowing
sales.
Three of the towns that opted in
— Southampton, Brookhaven, and
Riverhead — border one another,
making eastern Suffolk the region
where legal weed will be most widely
available. The towns of Southampton
and Brookhaven, which are home to
the Island’s two Indian reservations —
the Shinnecock in Southampton Hills
and the tribe’s Poospatuck reservation
in Mastic — were partly swayed
by the fact that Native Americans
plan to sell legal marijuana on their
sovereign land, where town laws are
irrelevant.
Also notably, the four towns are evenly
split between political party leadership.
Southampton and Babylon have Democratic
majorities — Babylon Town Supervisor
Rich Schaff er is also the Suff olk
Democratic chairman who had an about
face on the issue aft er initially calling
for all towns to opt out in the spring.
Republican majorities run the towns of
Brookhaven and Riverhead, where the
town board tried to pass an opt-out measure,
but the proposal narrowly failed by
a 3-2 vote. Brookhaven passed a measure
limiting sales to industrial areas.
“If we don’t regulate this, the black market
in the Town of Riverhead is going to
thrive,” Riverhead Councilman Kenneth
Rothwell said upon voting against the
opt-out measure in July. Riverhead
Supervisor Yvette Aguiar, like many
others who voted for opting out, said
the lack of clarity on the state regulations
remains an issue of concern.
The last town on the Island to opt out
was Southold on the North Fork, the
region’s most agricultural community,
which voted on Dec. 28.
“We’re not just going to walk away
from this,” said Southold Town Supervisor
Scott Russell, who said the
town will study if opting back in is
ideal once the state regulations are
released.
Towns and villages that opt out can
opt back in later, but the deadline to
opt out was at the end of 2021. Opting
out also triggered an opportunity for
opt-out advocates to petition for a
referendum to allow voters to decide
whether to opt back in. The only municipality
on LI that appears to have
voluntarily put the issue on ballots
on Election Day was the Village of
Amityville, where voters reaffirmed
the village board’s decision to opt out.
“Local moratoriums banning the
establishment of licensed cannabis
retailers do nothing to limit local residents’
access to cannabis; they only
limit their access to legal cannabis,”
said Paul Armentano, deputy director
of National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML),
an organization that has long lobbied
for legalization. “Marijuana production
and sales already take place in
every neighborhood in New York now.
However, in those localities that have
chosen to regulate this marketplace,
these transactions take place in a safe
environment.”
IN THE NEWS
An employee holds marijuana while posing in a photo illustration at a dispensary in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, June
20, 2018. (REUTERS/Chris Wattie)
“The only thing we
would be opting
out of would be
the sales tax
revenue,”
said Southampton
Town Supervisor Jay
Schneiderman.
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM