Members of the Upper Freehold governing body shared their views regarding a medical marijuana facility opening in the township before unanimously voting for an ordinance to prohibit any activity non-compliant with federal law from going before the zoning, planning or other applicable entities in the township.
Officials made their statements at the Dec. 15 Township Committee meeting held in the auditorium of the Stone Bridge Middle School.
Deputy Mayor Bob Faber said he has lived in the township for 65 years and put his farm into the state farmland preservation program.
“I never saw a farm in Upper Freehold Township that needed to raise marijuana,” he said.
Committeeman Robert Frascella said he didn’t want to get into the motives of Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center (BATC), the nonprofit group seeking to establish the medical marijuana growing facility, but that he did not see any benefit to the town.
“What comes from this will come and we’ll take care of it if we need to,” he said, referring to BATC’s threat to sue the township if it passed the ordinance.
Committeeman Stan Moslowski Jr. said the governing body is enacting the ordinance to protect the town, adding, “I hope it does and it will.”
Committeeman Steve Alexander, who originally proposed the ordinance, said the township will receive support from the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders. He said the State Agricultural Development Committee, which stated that medical marijuana is a crop, is “not the law of the land.”
According to Alexander, members of the governing body met with BATC representatives, alleging that BATC suggested they “…throw up their hands and just say, ‘It’s state law, there’s nothing we can do.’” Alexander said he responded, “Do you think our residents are that stupid?” Alexander also plans to propose a township ordinance stating that in future farmland preservation efforts requiring township taxpayer funding, landowners must agree that theywill not farmor rent, lease or sell rights to farmfor any activity in violation of federal law.
Mayor Lorisue Horsnall Mount said officials take an oath to uphold state and federal law .
“It doesn’t say maybe, what if, what about — it’s the law and we uphold it,” she said.
Mount said she thought the perfect example of an official not following this oath was Attorney General Eric Holder regarding immigration law.
“Upper Freehold Township did not create this situation,” she said.
Mount blamed “elected officials within New Jersey state government who lacked the ability to comprehend or chose to ignore the ramifications of any details this law needed before they put it into action.”
She encouraged BATC and other alternative treatment centers chosen by the state to grow and distribute medical marijuana to take their fight to the state, as state officials were the ones “who created this fiasco.”
She said BATC should take its argument and threats of litigation to the state.
According to Mount, BATC should come back to the township when the federal government makes marijuana a legal substance.
“Then come see us and we can address lighting, proximity to the school and all the aspects residents are concerned about,” she said.