Medical marijuana dispensary should be blocked on Route 58 until impacts are studied, town board members say

The possibility of a medical marijuana dispensary on Route 58 was met with resistance from Riverhead town board members last night after they were confronted by the director of the Suffolk Healthcare Cannabis Alliance.

Director Scott Poretsky, who lives in Mount Sinai, implored board members to reconsider the moratorium suggested at last week’s work session.

“We’re going to stop a dispensary that is basically going to be a pharmacy from opening up here to help conditions that a lot of other drugs can’t help,” Poretsky said. “To put a moratorium on it would be a mistake.”

But town board members stood firm in their support of a moratorium blocking the dispensary until studies can be conducted on its impact on traffic, police resources and the community at large.

“I don’t have a problem with medical marijuana,” said Councilwoman Jodi Giglio. “I have a problem with not knowing the impact on the Riverhead community.”

The dispensary, which hopes to open in the former Blockbuster location on Route 58, is one of only two dispensaries currently approved to operate on Long Island. The other dispensary will be located in Nassau County.

The medical marijuana sold won’t be grown in Riverhead but in an upstate New York facility run by Columbia Care, which will also operate the dispensary in Riverhead. Pursuant to state regulations, the drug will be sold only in non-smokeable forms, including pills, oils and vapors.

But after Town Supervisor Sean Walter announced the proposed location on Route 58 last week, town board members began discussing blocking the dispensary until more is known about its potential impacts.

“We have to study the traffic,” Councilman John Dunleavy explained to Poretsky last night. “Have you ever driven on County Road 58? That road is horrendous.”

He suggested that the dispensary may be better off opening elsewhere in Suffolk County on a less congested highway. “We’re not against medical marijuana,” Dunleavy said. “We’re against the traffic it may bring.”

Giglio recalled how marijuana helped her late first husband during his battle with lung cancer. “I understand there’s a need for it,” she said. “But I need to know the impact of it coming to our community before I can support it coming to Riverhead.”

Walter believes that EPCAL in Calverton would be a better location for the dispensary.

“It won’t get zoned out of existence, but where it winds up may be more in line with where we put our adult uses,” Walter said.

When Poretsky protested that the drug is only approved to be sold in non-smokable forms, such as capsules and tinctures, Walter said the town board needs to look at the “bigger picture.”

“It is my humble opinion that this has nothing to do with medical marijuana,” Walter said. “This is the incremental legalization of pot. And if that’s where this is going, it does not belong on Route 58.”

At last week’s work session, town board members asked the Riverhead Town Attorney to draft a moratorium for further discussion.