Everybody must get zoned: That was the message coming out of a Southampton Town Board meeting last Thursday as the town continues to work its way toward rules to guide the new world of marijuana legalization in New York State.
Southampton has been waiting for guidance from the state’s Office of Cannabis Management as it considers legislation that would determine where recreational cannabis sales might take place in the town. Its eyes are on County Road 39.
Supervisor Jay Schneiderman anticipated that Southampton might wind up with two or three locations, and this was in line with the vision the state had sketched out for each Assembly district where towns opted in to legal sales. Discussion of regulation of onsite-consumption lounges was left for another day.
Southampton’s initial foray into legislating where dispensaries could be located stipulated that they had to be 3,000 feet apart; state regulations are set at 1,000 feet minimum. But the town has already looked past village business zoning and won’t likely allow pot shops anywhere near the town’s hamlet centers — or the Village of Southampton, for that matter.
The town is looking at four zoning classifications that might allow pot shops to open on County Road 39. Mr. Schneiderman said he was okay with restrictions that would limit pot shops to areas zoned as highway business along that route, noting that with delivery and the volume of traffic that’s already there the impacts would be marginal.
“The market is going to drive where these places go,” Mr. Schneiderman said. He has in past meetings highlighted the importance of destigmatizing what is now a legal product in the state.
Town board members appeared to agree that highway business zoning and shopping center business zoning offered the two most acceptable options.
Another issue is the fact that the Shinnecock Nation is already selling cannabis with a 4-percent tax rate (to support the tribe), whereas total taxes on non-Indigenous-based sales in Southampton Town would be in the 14-to-15-percent range. For every $100 in cannabis purchases, the town would get about $3 and the state would collect about $9.
“You will pay more buying in town,” Mr. Schneiderman said.
