Retail marijuana burning topic for council again

“Anybody who thinks that cannabis is not currently being consumed in Long Beach hasn’t been outside recently.”

That is what David Zelinger said to the Long Beach City Council Tuesday night, joining many other residents in a plea to get them to reconsider opting into retail marijuana. The council voted unanimously last December, in 2021, to opt-out of a New York State program that would have allowed the establishment of a dispensary to sell retail marijuana in the city.

Zelinger is a board member of CLS Holdings USA, a vertically integrated cannabis producer and retailer offering a wide variety of cannabis products based in Nevada. He said the company is projected about $30 million in revenue this year alone and the company pays significant tax rates, to try to show the council what the retail spaces could bring.

“We are we are miles away from the biggest cannabis market in the world, with thousands of tourists getting off the train and walking through this city,” Zelinger said. “Are they going to bring pre-rolls from New York City or are they going to buy them when they get here? They’re going to smoke them when they get here. Do you want them smoking outside on Beech Street or do you want them smoking in a consumption space where it can be controlled?”

Gina Johnston, another resident, lived in Massachusetts before moving here with her husband and children. She was there when recreational cannabis became legal and when the first adult use dispensaries were opened. She acknowledged that some people might have a preconceived picture in their minds of how things could be with a cannabis dispensary and what they could look like. She tried to assure the council, and the residents in attendance, that it would not cause problems.

“The design was minimal and classy, the purchasing process was well managed and orderly,” Johnston said of the dispensary she saw open in Massachusetts. “Sure in the early days, there were sometimes a line outside but I assure you the people waiting in the line were not as rowdy as what you might find outside of Lily’s on a Saturday night.”

Johnston also brought up how, to her understanding, 443 residents, including herself, have emailed the city council to urge them to opt into retail cannabis.

In March, hundreds of residents, 718 to be exact, signed a petition to hold a referendum on whether to allow the retail sale of marijuana. The City Clerk, David Fraser, declared in a statement that it did “not comply with the law’s requirements” and was invalid. Of 718 signatures on the petition, only 391 “were valid.”

The state’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act required petitions to be signed by registered voters “equal to at least 10 percent of the total number of votes cast for governor at the last gubernatorial election” in the city.  Fraser’s statement said that the total number of votes cast in Long Beach in the last election for governor at the time was 12,613.

Councilman Roy Lester responded to the residents, saying they should “get more organized” and try to talk to the state to get things moving.