This sounds way more fun than, say, serving on the zoning board.
Morristown’s council is soliciting volunteers for a marijuana advisory committee.
“I think the underlying concern is, we just want to get it right first time. We want to figure out what the public wants, and whatever that is,” Council President Stefan Armington said at Tuesday’s virtual meeting.
As state officials prepare to craft rules for buying and selling weed, the council is creating local licensing and zoning regulations.
New Jersey voters approved recreational marijuana by a two-to-one margin last November, and Gov. Phil Murphy signed three bills last month to decriminalize it.
Morristown’s committee will include town officials, residents, and other stakeholders, Armington said. Anyone interested should contact town Clerk Margot Kaye.
Armington said you even might get to take a fact-finding field trip to Massachusetts, where, according to news reports, 80 marijuana retailers have racked up $1 billion in gross sales in their first two years in the commonwealth.
New Jersey municipalities have until this August to come up with recreational marijuana ordinances. The Morristown council began researching the matter two years ago, while state lawmakers still were debating legalizing pot. Now, council members are anxious to get something on the books.
“Our concern right now is that we don’t (want) an applicant coming in to Morristown, before we have an ordinance in place, and being able to essentially do whatever they want,” Armington said.
On Tuesday the council discussed enacting a prohibition on marijuana sales, to buy time to hash out regulations. If the governing body failed to adopt an ordinance by the August deadline, the town would be stuck with the moratorium for five years, advised town Attorney Vij Pawar.
Councilman Robert Iannaccone suggested a temporary ban that expires in August. Technicalities might render such a maneuver unnecessary, according to Armington. But Iannaccone did not want to take any chances.
“I would be more comfortable being safe than sorry,” Iannaccone said. “It’s a political football. We don’t know how these (state) regulations are going to end up until they’re basically adopted and put in the register” by the Legislature.
