Pound Ridge wants second chance to ban pot shops in light of rising opposition

Pound Ridge Supervisor Kevin Hansan gushes about the variety of small businesses that thrive in the town’s commercial corridor along Westchester Avenue, bordering Connecticut in the northeast corner of Westchester County.

“The town is good at having one of everything,” said Hansan, who I met Thursday morning in line for coffee at The Kitchen Table at Pound Ridge.  “We have a grocery store, hardware store, dry cleaner, coffee shop, a restaurant with a bar, a restaurant that serves a full breakfast, a tattoo artist, bookstore, and a wine shop.”

There used to be two wine shops, but the Wine Collector, which billed itself as a purveyor of rare and fine wines, closed last year. Now that building at 32 Westchester Ave. may soon be the site of a shop selling various strains of sativa and indica cannabis, the state’s newest legal intoxicant.

Hansan said the town was surprised to receive applicants this summer. Now they are scrambling to enact new zoning laws to govern any dispensary that wins a state license to sell cannabis.

On Thursday, the town received word that one of its applicants, Monica Alexander, who had sought a license to open a dispensary at 69 Westchester Ave., had withdrawn her bid. But a proposed operator at 32 Westchester Ave. still has his application pending.

"It wasn't until this past summer that this guy suddenly showed up," he said. "So we are a little behind the 8-ball. Could we have done that sooner? We could have if we had known that this was something someone was viably thinking about."

Marijuana: Connecticut adult-use pot shops draw New Yorkers as NY rollout limps along

News of the town’s first cannabis license application broke in October, creating a furor during the fall election for town offices. Hansan won a fourth term, but the suburban unrest hasn’t abated. Scores of residents packed a public hearing on Dec. 9 regarding a six-month moratorium on downtown building permits until the Pound Ridge Town Board considers regulations for cannabis shops in its downtown area.

“I recognize that cannabis is legal, but this issue has everything to do with the character of Pound Ridge,” said John McCown, who lost to Hansan by 57% to 43% in November. “I love Starbucks, but I never want one in Pound Ridge.”

Now the Democrat-controlled Pound Ridge Town Board has told the state Office of Cannabis Management that it supports passage of a home rule law that would give the town a second chance at holding a referendum on whether the town should allow a dispensary.

State Sen. Shelley Mayer, D-Yonkers, and Assemblyman Chris Burdick, D-Bedford, met with dispensary opponents on Friday.

State law gave municipalities until Dec. 31, 2021, to ban dispensaries. The law allows municipalities that voted to ban dispensaries the opportunity to rescind that ban. But it does not give municipalities that did not establish a ban a second chance to do so.

If approved by the state Legislature, Pound Ridge would be the first town granted a second chance on opting out.

“If the state thinks we should reconsider it, we aren’t going to stand in the way,” said Hansan. “We’ve got concerned residents who want to lead the opposition. We won’t stop them.”

Opting to opt out

The uproar over the proposed dispensary on Westchester Avenue comes two years after New York municipalities had their one-and-only chance to opt out of that section of the state’s cannabis law, which otherwise allows cannabis dispensaries in a municipality.

When I wrote about that two years ago, I was surprised to discover that Pound Ridge, not known for being on the cutting edge of societal change, was the only municipality in northeast Westchester that had decided to welcome cannabis dispensaries.

More: Will Westchester become Weed-chester? Communities have choice to opt out by Dec. 31

Hansan at the time told me he didn’t expect that a cannabis entrepreneur would turn a profit in the sleepy town of single-family homes, where Realtor.com reports the median home sales price in 2023 was $1.1 million.

Nathan's case for secrecy

The Pound Ridge Town Board’s desire to revisit its lack of action two years came days after retired attorney John Nathan sent a letter to the state Cannabis Control Board, challenging the town’s decision to not opt out of the state law that gave cannabis proprietors the right to set up shop.

Nathan, a former partner at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in Manhattan, argued that the Town Board violated the state Open Meetings Law by not discussing the merits of cannabis sales in public before deciding not to opt out.

He maintained that it was an “off-the-books” decision that violated the state law, which requires that policy decisions made by a municipal board be decided in public.

Nathan said that Hansan did little to alert Pound Ridge residents that such a decision was to be made in the fall of 2021. His review of Town Board videos found that Hansan spoke for one minute in April 2021 about the board having until the end of the year to make a decision.

“The supervisor decided on his own that he didn’t want to put the public through the opt-out process, which required a public hearing,” said Nathan. “Then he decided, with the support of other board members, to run out the clock.”

While the law required a public hearing if the municipality wanted to opt out, there was no such requirement if the town wanted to allow them by not acting. Hansan said there were no secret meetings at which the decision was made.

There was nothing for the Town Board to act on in public because the law only required public action if a municipality wanted to ban dispensaries.

“Any of the Town Board members could have brought it up,” he said. “We didn’t do anything. And there was no requirement that we do anything.”

Hansan said allowing a dispensary would help town finances, with a 3% sales tax flowing to the municipality. That means $30,000 for every $1 million in cannabis sales.

“When has the state ever given municipalities that much unrestricted revenue?”

Possible impacts

McCown, however, maintains that a pot shop on Pound Ridge will depress property values among 69 single-family homes within 2000 feet of the former wine store. He cited a study from the state of Washington that found property values of homes that close to dispensaries falling by 3.5%.

“A hit of $40,000 on your property value would be a tangible impact,” said McCown.

Hansan, however, compares the outpouring of opposition in Pound Ridge to the outcry several years ago against the erection of a cell tower in the Scotts Corner business district. After its installation, residents became used to it, and life moved on, with better cell service.

“We were told the cell tower was going to destroy the character of the town,” recalled Hansan. “The emotion of that was like over the chart. But then what happened? It’s like a fallen tree. Once it’s there, but after a week, you don’t even notice it any more. You just live your life.”

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David McKay Wilson writes about tax issues and government accountability. Follow him on Twitter @davidmckay415 or email him at dwilson3@lohud.com.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Pound Ridge, which didn't ban pot shops in 2021, wants a second chance