(Photo via Pexels).
A local business entity is proposing a cannabis dispensary in the village of Homer and is a month away from filing a state cannabis license.
At Tuesday’s village Board of Trustees meeting, board members had discussions about receiving a month-long notice from Classy Canna LLC, the business entity that proposed the local cannabis dispensary.
The 30-day notice is required by state law before filing for a dispensary license with the state’s Office of Cannabis Management.
“We have almost nothing that we can do on this,” Village mayor Hal McCabe said. “It’s the way the law is written. We can regulate time, place and manner to an extent, but that’s a super gray area. I know there's going to be lawsuits out the ying yang for municipalities that come down too stringent on the manner because the manner is such a gray area.”
The dispensary filing, officials said, meets state requirements regarding the proximity to school and parks.
“This one I know meets the distance between the school and the park and all of that,” Village Treasurer Tanya DiGennaro said, noting the 500-feet space from the proposed business location to those areas.
The dispensary is part of a two-part project to renovate the building at 8 N. Main St., which is being considered by a committee of local stakeholders to be included in the village’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI). The state’s DRI program awarded the village around $10 million for the beautification of Homer’s downtown area.
Classy Canna, a project sponsored by community members Kailey Ruoff and Stephanie Koslowski, would cost about $275,800. Ruoff and Koslowski would be seeking $110,320 in DRI funding. Half of the bottom floor, McCabe said, would be a gift shop that sells local artisan wares, pottery, and specialty gifts, and herbal remedies. The back half of the project would be a cannabis dispensary, if approved by the state.
“The upstairs will be apartments,” McCabe said. “But you cannot sell a t-shirt with their logo on it in the dispensary, so you have to go into a completely different store for something like that.”
(Photo credit to Classy Canna, LLC).
