NJ legal weed lawsuit prompts frustrated Asbury Park business owner to move to Neptune

ASBURY PARK - The owner of Good Feeling Farms would feel a lot better if he could stay in Asbury Park and add cannabis cultivation to his microgreens business, however litigation has the city's hands tied, so the business is leaving for neighboring Neptune Township.

Good Feeling Farms has specialized in microgreens, edible plants the company describes as "more than a sprout and younger than baby greens." They are grown indoors, using LED lights and grow on vertical hydroponic soil-free towers. This technique allows them to control both climate and weather and offer their distributors a set price and quantity year-round.

"We sell wholesale to produce distributors who then sell to restaurants," Chris Chiappetta, the owner of Good Feeling Farms told the Asbury Park Press. "Microgreens are used as a flavor and visual component of like a fine-dining dish in a restaurant. It is not cannabis."

Open since 2017, the farm doubled its business from 2017 to 2018, then doubled again from 2018 to 2019. However, in 2020 the pandemic hit the business hard and three years later, Good Feeling Farms is still trying to recover because serving restaurants during the pandemic was "horrible" for the business.

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"I was at a point where I either needed to reinvest a lot of money into the business or just walk away from the business," Chiappetta said.

He attended the Nov. 8 city council meeting to make his "final pitch."

Chiappetta has a conditional license from the state to cultivate — not sell — cannabis and asked the city council for approval.

He clarified his business would be "wholesale, not a dispensary" and that his farm would have to sell to a licensed dispensary.

"I know in New Jersey growers are going to come and they're going to bring in California companies and Canadian companies in, and so I wanted to prevent doing that. I wanted to keep everything local," Chiappetta said. "So, I reached out to my good friends at Kula Farm and started doing a workshop." That gives him local workers who know how to grow cannabis indoors.

"With (the city council's) support we can approve wholesale cultivation business in Asbury Park and together we can also disallow dispensaries, and the law allows each municipality to opt in and out of the different licenses," Chiappetta said. "We want to house small, locally owned companies to do extraction, gummies, all that stuff."

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'You're caught in the middle'

Mayor John Moor praised Good Feeling Farms, but added "you're caught in the middle of a stupid litigation that has nothing to do with growing marijuana."

The litigation in question came after Cranbury-based Breakwater Treatment and Wellness proposed opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Asbury Park, which would have been the company's third location in New Jersey.

The city's Zoning Board of Adjustment rejected Breakwater's application for a medical marijuana dispensary on Memorial Drive and First Avenue.

Board members rejected the application at their March 28 meeting, stating that personally they had no problem with medical or recreational marijuana, but did not want to "override the city council," citing the 2022 resolution in which the council decided to prohibit medical cannabis dispensaries in the city. The state's marijuana legalization law allowed municipalities to opt out of allowing marijuana businesses in town.

Breakwater is currently suing the city. The attorney representing Breakwater in the lawsuit declined to comment.

See the lawsuit at the bottom of this story.

The city council's attorney, Frederick C. Raffetto, said, "Based on the litigation that is pending regarding an entirely different form of cannabis in the city, the city is not in a position to move forward in any respect in with regard to cannabis consideration and licensing, unfortunately."

Moor told Chiappetta he didn't want to see the litigation run his business out of town. "The city doesn't want to lose you, the city doesn't want to lose Asbury Park workers to Neptune," he said.

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'Really sad'

"The Chiappetta family, Chris in particular, has done a tremendous job at not only immersing himself in the community but helping that community, (like) giving people jobs," said resident Matt Daniels, who works for Good Feeling.

He added, "I know this is not on (the city council). Shame on big corporations that try to come into Asbury Park and do not know the community and businesses."

Dana Conzo, an anthropologist with Rutgers University, has been doing a research project on Chiappetta's farm for about a year and a half, and called the situation "really sad."

"I see the inequality so starkly in this town … how desperately in need this community is for on-the-ground, grassroot community organizing. I am not even a cannabis user, but just the business that can bring jobs into this community," Conzo said.

She added, "It is going to be sad when he has to leave" because Chiappetta and "the heart of the workforce" are in Asbury.

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The mayor admitted the governing body was limited as to what it could say.

"When the marijuana laws were passed, it was to help small businesses, like (Chiappetta), make money in the town they love, and somehow, somebody who is not a small business like (Chiappetta) from a town they love is screwing it up. It is something we have to deal with," Moor said.

Good Feeling Farms plans to be in operation in Asbury Park through the end of the year.

"I made the decision to close the microgreen farm. It is apparent (the conditional approval) is not going to happen in the next two years or so, so I am pivoting my business and looking to open a (cannabis) manufacturing business in Neptune," Chiappetta said.

Breakwater lawsuit by Dennis Carmody on Scribd

Charles Daye is the metro reporter for Asbury Park and Neptune, with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. @CharlesDayeAPP Contact him: CDaye@gannettnj.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Asbury Park legal weed lawsuit prompts business to move to Neptune