By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, The Packet Group
PLUMSTED — A measure that outlaws marijuana-cultivation farms in Plumsted in order to give the township time to plan where such a facility would be more appropriately located was adopted 3-2 by the Township Committee on Dec. 28.
Although the ordinance does not specifically mention medical marijuana, it prohibits any business whose activities violate federal law. Federal law classifies marijuana as an illegal drug with no exemptions for medical use.
“Plumsted approved the same ordinance that Upper Freehold approved and Howell Township has introduced,” then-Mayor Ron Dancer said.
However, the township isn’t completely shutting out the possibility of medical marijuana facilities; it wants to be able to plan for them with the Land Use Board in the event an application is ever made, Mr. Dancer said.
“Plumsted’s intention for the ordinance is (as) an interim measure to provide a window of time to amend the township zoning regulations and site plan review standards to be better prepared in the event that an application is made to the Land Use Board for a medical marijuana facility,” Mr. Dancer said. “It is our intent to use this as an interim measure to use the time to plan.”
Breakwater Alternative Treatment Center, one of six state-approved nonprofits with a state license to grow and dispense medical marijuana for use by state-registered patients with serious illnesses, has identified four properties in Upper Freehold Township as the potential site of its marijuana-growing greenhouses. After the company filed for zoning permits, Upper Freehold’s Township Committee adopted the ordinance aimed at preventing Breakwater from coming to town.
No applications for a medical marijuana facility are pending in Plumsted, Mr. Dancer said last week.
Nevertheless, Breakwater’s 211-page application to the state for an Alternative Treatment Center license, which the state already has granted, identified the Good Tree Farm on Jacobstown Road as the place it would lease land to grow medical marijuana. However, the founder of the 55-acre organic farm, Hisham Moharram, maintains he never made a commitment to lease land to Breakwater. Dr. Moharram has said he intends to file a formal complaint with the state over the “misrepresentations” he claims Breakwater made in its state licensing application.
All zones in Plumsted currently allow agriculture or farming activities so without the adoption of the ordinance, a medical marijuana site could have been placed anywhere in town.
The Township Committee said it is up to the Land Use Board to determine the most appropriate locations for a marijuana-growing facility. Officials said it would take between 60 and 90 days to examine the zones of the township and identify areas that may be appropriate if they are located away from addiction recovery locations, schools and places of worship. The board also will consider the buffering, signage and other zoning and planning issues related to such facilities.
Once the regulations have moved through the Land Use Board and Township Committee, the governing body will have two options. One is to amend the new ordinance and remove the language referencing business activities that violate federal law. The other option is to put a special question on the ballot to gauge public sentiment on the issue.
Many of the Upper Freehold officials and residents involved in the adoption of that municipality’s ordinance spoke for more than two and a half hours at the Dec. 28 Plumsted Township public hearing. The Plumsted Township Committee eventually voted 3-2 in favor of the ordinance. Plumsted Township Committee members Jack Trotta and Herb Marinari cast the two dissenting votes.
Mr. Trotta said he opposed the ordinance because he witnessed the suffering his mother endured during her two battles with cancer before her death in 2002. He said he supports an alternative treatment center’s right to submit an application and the Land Use Board’s right to decide if the proposal meets state and local laws.
“I cannot allow this ordinance to pass in Plumsted … without a fight,” Mr. Trotta said. “You only have to watch a loved one suffering in pain and not being able to do anything about it to know that we as a society must do something to help them.”
Mr. Trotta said that in 2009 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said the federal government would not prosecute medical marijuana facilities whose operations complied with state laws.
Committee newcomer Herb Marinari, a 30-year cancer survivor who said he has been in and out of remission four times, most recently four years ago, also voted against the ordinance.
“As a cancer patient, one of the worst things you see is the effect it has on your family,” Mr. Marinari said. “I disagree with this, I cannot vote for this … we should not be put in this position …”
Mr. Dancer, who is also a state assemblyman, has introduced a bill to amend the state’s medical marijuana law to give municipal officials greater control over land-use decisions involving cultivation facilities proposed within their borders.

