The New Jersey Monitor reports
When New Jersey voters approved a 2020 referendum to make recreational marijuana legal, the residents of Princeton emerged as some of legalization’s biggest champions.
Seventy-five percent of voters in this progressive college town gave legal weed a thumbs-up, compared to 68% of voters statewide.
But nearly two years later, as talk turns to where to put a marijuana dispensary amid the artisan eateries and designer clothiers lining Princeton’s leafy streets, critics of plans to allow sales locally are drowning out supporters of legal weed.
“It smells terrible,” said Paige Randall.
“Why would we bring pot shops into Princeton knowing they are uniquely attractive targets to criminals?” said Gabe Saltarelli.
“Having this available within a walking distance is not a benefit, especially for an addictive substance,” said James Hong.
The three Princeton residents were among nearly 350 people who tuned in to a hearing public officials hosted last week after Princeton’s Cannabis Task Force recommended opening three dispensaries in the 18-square-mile town of 30,000 people. More than 50 people sounded off for over four hours — and most of those who spoke want weed nowhere nearby.
Princeton is the latest town where cannabis critics are mobilizing to limit the sale of a substance voters overwhelmingly voted in 2020 to legalize. The anti-weed crusaders are packing public meetings to warn about the drug’s dangers and begging officials to keep cannabis businesses out of their towns.
In towns both where officials have approved a marijuana market within their borders, like Pennington and Livingston, and where they have not, like Mahwah, Verona, and Northfield, hundreds of people have signed online petitions urging municipal officials to prohibit cannabis shops altogether, or enact restrictions such as keeping them away from schools. The share of the vote in favor of the 2020 marijuana legalization referendum in these towns ranged from 52% (Mahwah) to 76% (Pennington).
In Hoboken, where the referendum passed with 84% of the vote, city officials are considering new limits on where cannabis can be sold in the face of vocal critics of local sales, especially a group of residents who object to a cannabis dispensary planned for the first floor of a mixed-use residential building.
Hoboken Councilwoman Tiffanie Fisher defends the planned new restrictions.
“You can support legalization and decriminalization but not want it sold within the boundaries in your town,” Fisher said.
For veterans of the fight to legalize weed, the objections feel familiar. Chris Goldstein, a longtime activist with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, attributes opposition to legal weed sales to “continuing stigma and frankly, a lot of misinformation.”
In some N.J. towns, groups attempt to block legal weed sales
