Residents join merchants at downtown tree-lighting event
By Jenna Kunze, Staff Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD The Township Committee has introduced an ordinance designed to thwart efforts to site the state’s first medical marijuana farm in town, but local officials also are looking to Trenton now to provide the aerial support needed to help municipalities keep out unwanted marijuana facilities.
The State Agriculture Development Committee is scheduled to meet today (Dec. 8) in Trenton to decide whether a proposed marijuana cultivation facility is afforded the same protections as other farming operations under the state Right to Farm Act. The law, considered the strongest in the nation, protects commercial farmers from municipal regulations that “unnecessarily constrain” agricultural operations as well as “nuisance” legal actions from towns or private citizens.
”The big issue, beyond what this governing body is doing, is how the state is going to interpret the Right to Farm Act and farmland preservation to these types of operations,” special counsel Eric Bernstein told the Township Committee.
The municipal ordinance introduced at the Dec. 1 Township Committee meeting is aimed at derailing Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center’s efforts to locate a marijuana cultivation operation in Upper Freehold. Although the ordinance does not specifically mention Breakwater or medical marijuana, it prohibits any business whose activities violate federal law. Federal law classifies marijuana as an illegal drug and does not provide exemptions for medical use as state law does.
Breakwater’s attorney, Jon Fisher, said in a phone interview Tuesday that a municipal ordinance cannot preempt state law, and New Jersey law specifically allows six state-selected nonprofits, including Breakwater, to establish one medical marijuana cultivation facility each in pre-assigned regions of state.
”We want to build a greenhouse business in a farming community, and we want to work with them to find the best location,” Mr. Fisher said.
When asked if the ordinance, if enacted, would be challenged in court, Mr. Fisher said he hoped to avoid that.
”It’s the last thing I want, and I don’t think they want that either,” he said.
The public hearing and adoption vote for the ordinance is set for 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, at Stone Bridge Middle School on Yardville-Allentown Road.
Beyond the issue before the SADC of whether the Right to Farm Act protects marijuana operations from restrictive municipal ordinances is the question of whether farms that have been preserved with taxpayer funds can be used for marijuana cultivation. Mr. Bernstein said this was another decision the SADC has to make.
Breakwater has filed for zoning permits in connection with a number of Upper Freehold properties it is considering as possible locations for its marijuana cultivation facility, including at least two parcels that are preserved.
When a farm is preserved, its owner is compensated for relinquishing development rights and agreeing to a deed restriction that says the land can only be used for agricultural use now and in the future.
Township Committeeman Bob Faber, a farmer whose 176-acre farm on Emley’s Hill Road is preserved under the state program, was adamant marijuana cultivation should not be permitted on a preserved farm.
”When I went into preservation, the contract we signed did not mention marijuana,” Mr. Faber said. “It mentions grain farming, horse farming, sod farming vegetable farming or nursery stock. It did not mention marijuana as a crop.”
Township Committeeman Robert Frascella agreed marijuana was not a crop, and medical marijuana-cultivation facilities should not be treated the same as the other commercial farming operations under either the state’s Farmland Preservation program or the state’s Right to Farm Act.
”With regard to marijuana being classified as a crop, the last I checked, I did not need a $200 ID card or a prescription from a physician to buy corn, tomatoes, hay trees or any of that stuff,” Dr. Frascella said. “It’s a pharmaceutical in this use.”
Mayor LoriSue Mount said the state’s implementation of the New Jersey Compassionate Medical Marijuana Use law has put Upper Freehold in a precarious position, and local taxpayers should have to bear the cost of litigating the issue.
Marijuana is against federal law, and both the federal and state constitutions require public officials, including municipal officials, to uphold the laws of the United States, Mrs. Mount said.
”Quite honestly, I don’t know why we’re even having to deal with this; it’s against the law,” Mrs. Mount said. “It should be as black and white as that, and we should not have to pay to prove that point.
”So I’ve asked Gov. (Chris) Christie to afford us a meeting … to help us with this,” Mrs. Mount said.
She said she had not heard back from the governor’s office as of the night of the Dec. 1 Township Committee meeting.
Mr. Fisher pointed out Tuesday that Gov. Christie delayed implementing New Jersey’s medical marijuana program until the U.S. Justice Department clarified whether state-regulated medical marijuana operations would be subject to criminal prosecution. The Justice Department said in June that it only was cracking down on loosely regulated medical marijuana operations feeding the illegal drug market.
”He’s a former federal prosecutor,” Mr. Fisher said, referring to the governor. “I promise you if it’s OK with him and his staff, it’s OK to move forward.”
Assemblyman Ron Dancer told the Township Committee on Dec. 1 that he is introducing legislation in the lame duck Legislature to amend the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act to give municipal officials greater control over land-use decisions involving marijuana cultivation facilities proposed within their borders.
According to a draft copy of the legislation he distributed to the Township Committee, the law would be changed to allow municipalities to condition land-use approvals for marijuana alternative treatment centers upon the ATC’s compliance with local, state and federal laws and regulations.
Mr. Dancer’s legislation also allows municipalities to impose stricter security requirements for ATC sites than set by state law.
”You know your township better than big government,” Mr. Dancer told the Township Committee. “With the bill I’m introducing, it leaves it up to the local representatives at the local level. You determine what’s best for your community.”
Breakwater has filed zoning permit applications in connection with four properties in Upper Freehold. Mr. Fisher said the law only allows Breakwater to establish one cultivation facility, and the reason multiple permits were filed was to give Upper Freehold officials a variety of options to help Breakwater identify the most suitable location for the proposed greenhouse operation.
Zoning permit applications obtained under the Open Public Records Act show Breakwater is considering properties located at 86 Rues Road (92 acres owned by George Rue comprised of two separate lots, one of which is farmland preserved); Miss K’s Greenhouses at 123 Route 539 (19 acres owned by Branislav Licina that is not farmland preserved); 170 Route 526 (a 10-acre property zoned agricultural owned by Matthew Lucas); and a 56-acre farmland preserved property on Rues Road owned by Bob Cooper, of Campusome Inc.