Hampton Bays Cannabis Shop Roils Residents Right out of Gate

With objections to a proposal to open a pot shop in a former bank building on the edge of downtown Hampton Bays starting to pour in, Southampton Town officials say they are appealing to the State Office of Cannabis Management to reconsider its determination that the site is suitable for a dispensary despite its proximity to St. Rosalie’s Church, which runs a preschool and hosts Narcotic Anonymous meetings.

Supervisor Maria Moore said that she has asked the town attorney’s office to prod the state agency about the legality of the proposed location — again.

“I asked our lawyers to write to the OCM about that particular application, because of the church and the preschool activities that are held outside,” Moore said on Monday. “Which we had already done when the application first came in, and they never responded.”

Moore echoed the objections that have been raised by local residents and by St. Rosalie’s leadership to a state-licensed retail cannabis shop being opened just a few doors up from the preschool.

State law dictates that cannabis shops cannot operate within 500 feet of schools. But the code, Moore said the town’s attorneys have found, measures the distance from the front door of the shop to the front door of the school building, or from the middle of the walkways leading from the sidewalk — which may put the Hampton Bays shop just beyond the threshold.

Town officials say the distance should be measured from the property line of the St. Rosalie’s campus, since kids often play outside at the church, making the former North Fork Bank building ineligible as a pot shop location.

The state regulation only requires a 500-foot separation from buildings used “exclusively as a school.” Cannabis shops must only be separated from houses of worship by 200 feet, under the state regulations. Both separation requirements apply only when a proposed shop is on the same street as the church or school — if they are around the corner from each other, the straight line distance does not restrict the shop from operating.

The Reverend S.A. Maddaloni, the pastor at St. Rosalie’s, penned a letter to the Planning Board earlier this month asking members to reject the application because of the proximity of the proposed shop to the church, which runs a daily preschool program as well as religious education classes for older students and hosts a day camp in summer that frequently hosts activities outdoors on the church property.

The church, he noted, also is host to a substance abuse clinic that is used by more than 150 clients.

“To establish a cannabis dispensary so close to this clinic in the most walkable area of our downtown would be detrimental to the well-being of these vulnerable clients and also to the larger community,” Father Maddaloni wrote. “In fact, one could say it is downright cruel to place such a dispensary so close to people working hard in a struggle to achieve freedom from substance addiction.”

Hampton Bays resident Gayle Lombardi pointed out to the board at a recent meeting that Hampton Bays is somewhat unique locally in that the highway business zone — the only one the town allows retail cannabis shops to operate in — comes much closer to the core downtown than in most other hamlets.

The proposal for the pot shop in the former bank has been brought by a limited liability company called Mottz Only Authentic New York Style LLC, which also has a pending license application to the New York State Office of Cannabis management.

The town was notified that Mottz Only had applied for a retail cannabis license in 2023 and attorneys for the company brought the proposal to the Planning Board for an informal pre-application conference — at which the Planning Board made clear the widespread hesitation to the site.

But attorneys for Mottz Only filed their formal application to the Town Planning Board in February of this year and town staff have deemed it to still be incomplete, so the board’s official review of the proposal has not yet begun.

There currently are seven proposals for retail cannabis stores in various stages of the application process pending before the Town Planning Board, none of which has yet been issued the final approval allowing the businesses to open.

The first application to the Planning Board for a cannabis dispensary in the town was brought by Greg Konner, owner of the Carvel property in Bridghampton, in November 2023. Konner has still not received final approval of his site plan from the board.

The board last week held a public hearing on another of the pending proposals, by Ashley Capraro, owner of a historic building, a former antiques store, on Montauk Highway in Water Mill. Capraro’s formal application was filed and no objections were raised to the proposal.

Both Konner and Capraro have already been issued retail cannabis licenses by the state agency. Only two other licenses have been issued in the town, one to a group known as High Rise Brands that has a pending application before the Planning Board for a cannabis shop adjacent the Capri Hotel in Southampton, and one to Brown Budda, which opened briefly for the sale of cannabis products for delivery last fall in a former pool supply building on County Road 39 in Tuckahoe. It has since halted operations while its application is reviewed by the Planning Board.

Town officials in recent conversations expressed reservations about how the rollout of the legalization of cannabis sales has gone — mixed with lament that Southampton Town had not opted out of allowing retail pot sales when it had the chance in 2023.

Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara said that the specifics of the state’s allowances for the shops — such as the requirement that a school and shop be on the same street for the 500-foot separation to be required — and discussions at the state level of loosening restrictions, has towns that have allowed pot sales growing uneasy.

“We opted into something that’s changed now from what we understood it to be,” she said. “We are continually reaching out to OCM to make sure we have a voice and … hoping the state doesn’t overreach even more.”

She said that she was told that there has been a proposal by the state agency to cut the required distance between dispensaries in towns of over 20,000 residents from 1,000 feet to 500 feet, to encourage the opening of more dispensaries.

Moore said that the town has inquired about effectively changing its mind and opting out of the allowance — which the state roll out expressly prohibited unless it was done before the end of 2023.

Moore was the mayor of the Village of Westhampton Beach at the time, which opted out — as all the local villages, and East Hampton Town did.

“You can’t blame people for not wanting them in their hamlet,” she said this week. “We didn’t approve it in the village, so I understand.”