Ocean County's first legal weed store set to open doors. Meet the owners
SOUTH TOMS RIVER – What happens when you bring together four local business owners who sell coffee, cut hair and mix cement?
You get Ocean County’s first-ever recreational cannabis dispensary, opening Friday.
“I think it will be huge for everybody, it is going to be big,” said Thomas Marino, a local barber who joined three other nearby merchants to create The Social Leaf, which opens Friday. “People are coming up to the door everyday asking if we are ready, if we are open yet.”
The Social Leaf will operate at 434 Atlantic City Boulevard and offer recreational cannabis, becoming the 47th such dispensary in New Jersey. It will be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days per week and employ about 50 people, Marino said.
Marino, 45, partnered with John Earp and Jennifer Forsdahl, owners of Bubby’s Beanery in Toms River; Frank Guzzi, who runs Guzzi Masonry of Toms River; and Guzzi’s brother in-law, Will Hall, in the venture.
“I’ve been seeing more and more health benefits with it in my family,” said Guzzi, 44. “It was a good opportunity. It will bring jobs and business to the area. It will be a plus.”
Pro-marijuana advocates say it can’t happen soon enough in an area where the need is strong and options are few.
“It has one of the highest numbers of registered patients in the state,” Ken Wolski, executive director of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana, said about Ocean County. “There is a real need for access to medical cannabis and convenience so patients do not have to drive great distances to get their medicine.”
At least 8,650 registered medical marijuana patients live in Ocean County, the third most in New Jersey behind Monmouth and Camden, state data reveals.
But until July, a medical marijuana patient in Ocean County must travel as far north as Neptune, as far south as Egg Harbor Township or as far west as Bordentown or Waterford to get access to medicinal cannabis.
It's one of three dispensaries approved by the borough council and when it opens it will be just the fourth dispensary in New Jersey that exclusively sells cannabis to recreational customers.
Marino said he and Earp first discussed the idea in the Spring of 2021 and the five partners made the initial plan to open the shop over dinner in 2022 at Brando’s in Asbury Park.
“We decided to move forward with the process that night,” Marino recalls. “The building we are in was an existing building with two former businesses and we took them over and made it one store and re-did everything.”
Marino said the partners are leasing the 1,500-square-foot location but hope to purchase it in the future.
The opening marks a new cannabis option along the Shore, which has only a handful at the moment and few locations willing to accept more.
Of the 33 municipalities in Ocean County, only six allow any type of cannabis sales. Among those, just three permit any type of recreational cannabis business and two — Lakehurst and South Toms River — specifically allow dispensaries.
With The Social Leaf open, four other counties will remain without a cannabis dispensary — Cape May, Morris, Salem and Sussex counties.
Only about one-third of municipal governing bodies have adopted ordinances establishing cannabis licenses, according to a USA TODAY NETWORK review of municipal ordinances in New Jersey. And fewer than 140 towns — less than a quarter of all 564 municipalities — specifically allow dispensaries in their ordinances.
That is counter to public opinion with a majority of voters in all but three municipalities voting in favor of the November 2020 ballot measure that legalized weed.
A Stockton University poll found 53% of New Jerseyans supported a dispensary in their town, down from 56% last year. About 39% of respondents opposed a local dispensary, also up three points from 2022.
But there are some signs of progress in those few Ocean County municipalities that did lean into cannabis.
In Waretown, a Bloc medical marijuana dispensary opened for business in early July. And last year, the Lakehurst Township Committee approved licenses for a pair of recreational dispensaries — including one at a former Burger King — and a cannabis manufacturer.
Joe Strupp is an award-winning journalist with 30 years’ experience who covers education and several local communities for APP.com and the Asbury Park Press. He is also the author of three books, including Killing Journalism on the state of the news media, and an adjunct media professor at Rutgers University and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Reach him at jstrupp@gannettnj.com and at 732-413-3840. Follow him on Twitter at @joestrupp
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Ocean County set to open its first legal weed dispensary
