New Dorp Lane Says No to a Second Dispensary, and Albany Will Decide Whether That Matters

By Barnaby Ellingsworth, Staten Island Correspondent

Community boards in New York City do not issue licenses or approve zoning changes on their own. In most cases they are asked for an opinion, and how much that opinion counts depends on who is listening. This month Staten Island’s Community Board 2 gave a clear one on New Dorp Lane, and the question is whether state regulators will listen.

According to SILive’s account of the board’s October business, members voted 10-3 to oppose an application for an adult-use cannabis dispensary at 267 New Dorp Lane. Opponents cited how close the site is to New Dorp High School, a preschool, the New Dorp library branch and a dance studio. They also noted that there is already a licensed cannabis retailer on the same stretch of the lane. SILive reported that the recommendation is advisory and will go to the state as part of its review.

The application

The proposal first came up at the board’s Aging and Health Services Committee on October 13. According to SILive’s preview of that week’s meetings, the applicant was Wei Hu, doing business as 10613 Northern LLC. The committee was to hear Hu’s presentation, take public comment and then make an advisory recommendation to the full board.

The City Politic found little else public about the applicant.

The existing shop is a dispensary called Be., at 338 New Dorp Lane. Its presence was one of the opponents’ points: New Dorp Lane already has a dispensary, and some members did not see a reason for a second.

Who decides

The board’s vote has a defined place in the state process. Under New York’s cannabis rules, an applicant for a retail dispensary license in New York City must notify the local community board 30 to 270 days before filing. The board then has 30 days to give an opinion. The state Office of Cannabis Management says that opinion becomes part of the application record, and the Cannabis Control Board has to explain how it considered it. But the board’s vote is not a veto.

State rules also set firm distance limits. According to the office’s guidance for retail dispensaries, a shop generally cannot be within 500 feet of school grounds or 200 feet of a house of worship on the same road. In a municipality the size of New York City, it must also be at least 1,000 feet from another dispensary. Whether 267 New Dorp Lane meets those rules is for the state to measure and decide. Board members’ objections were about the character of the corridor, not a legal finding on distances, and The City Politic is not making one either.

That leaves a familiar gap. Neighbors who object to a dispensary often assume the community board can block it, and it cannot. Meanwhile the state is trying to build a legal market that follows these rules, while unlicensed smoke shops follow none of them. Both the neighbors’ concerns and the state’s goal are legitimate. The 10-3 vote does not settle the question, but it puts the corridor’s objection clearly on the record for Albany.

A different answer up the road

Staten Island’s community boards have not treated cannabis applications the same way. Last month, a West Brighton area committee of Community Board 1 heard a proposal for a dispensary called Loud Cloud at 605 Forest Avenue. According to the committee’s minutes, published in an October meeting packet posted on the city’s website, it voted to approve the application. Each corridor is different, and the boards are making separate calls based on what they see locally.

For New Dorp, the vote came during a month of mostly good local news. The New Dorp branch of the New York Public Library reopened on October 19 after about 22 months of renovations. It was one of the places opponents mentioned.

The local politics

CB 2 covers the middle of the Island, from New Springville and Bulls Head east to Midland Beach and South Beach, with New Dorp in the middle. Fred Guinta chairs the board, and Debra A. Derrico is the district manager. Much of the district is represented in the City Council by David Carr, the Council’s minority leader. The City Politic has not found any public statement from Carr on this application.

The issue will not go away. As the legal market grows, Staten Island’s community boards are likely to see more applications like this one, and they will keep facing the same limits on what they can do. For now, New Dorp’s objection is on the record.

This story is based on SILive’s reporting on Community Board 2’s October meetings, Community Board 1’s published minutes and guidance from the state Office of Cannabis Management.

Featured image: The Welcome to New Dorp sign at Hylan Boulevard and New Dorp Lane, April 2022. Photo by Tdorante10 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.