Red Bank paves way for three legal weed stores to open in borough
RED BANK – Three cannabis businesses could open shop soon after receiving unanimous borough approval Thursday night.
The retail businesses include Canopy Crossroads LLC, The Frosted Nug and Monteverde NJ.
Canopy Crossroads, founded by Middletown couple Andy Zeitlin and Caryn Cohen, was approved by the borough’s planning board in May. It plans on taking over the retail space at 9 West St. next to Red Bank Liquors.
The Frosted Nug, previously named the Red Bank Fire Company LLC, was approved by the planning board in March. It was approved to take over the restaurant China Moon in the Crate’s Liquor Store strip mall on Bridge Avenue. Its conditional license approved by the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission is addressed to Sergio Ribeiro, a Portuguese entrepreneur.
And Monteverde NJ was approved by the planning board in June. It plans on opening a store at 45 North Bridge Avenue, taking over a former dry-cleaner. The owners are Elizabeth Egan of Toms River and Devin Liles of Boulder, Colorado.
The three stores will need an additional approval from the state before they can move toward opening for adult use sales.
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In 2020, New Jersey put the question of cannabis legalization to the voters. With 67% of voters voting yes to legalization, the state created the Cannabis Regulatory Commission to vet and approve licenses for cannabis businesses. The governing bodies of New Jersey’s municipalities then voted on whether or not to allow cannabis businesses to operate within their borders.
At that time, Red Bank was one of a handful of municipalities that allowed cannabis businesses to open up stores and warehouses in its borders.
In an interview in April 2022, Canopy Crossroads’s Zeitlin, who was a founding member of the pharmaceutical company Celgene Corp., said his team leased 9 West St. in late 2021 to streamline to approval process. The company received a conditional license from the state in October 2022, which sets off a 120-day window with an automatic 45 day renewal before expiring.
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During that time, the former borough council began to contemplate restricting the number of cannabis companies that could operate in the borough after receiving about two dozen inquiries from interested cannabis companies. The borough council was also notified that its 2021 approved cannabis map did not draw its 1000-foot drug free school zone buffer correctly.
In April, the borough council voted to restrict the locations that potential cannabis businesses could operate within and to create a local cannabis review board that would award a limited number of borough licenses to cannabis businesses. While the cannabis review board became law with its cap of three cannabis retailer licenses in the borough, the ordinance to restrict the locations of potential cannabis businesses was voted down by the borough’s planning board. The planning board found that the proposed ordinance was inconsistent with the borough’s master plan in that it places a barrier to new businesses.
After a May election ousted five members of the borough council that supported greater restrictions to cannabis businesses in the borough, the new council unanimously approved the first three borough licenses for cannabis retailers on Thursday.
Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Red Bank approves three borough licenses for new cannabis stores
