The Borough President held a Cannabis Conference at Queensborough Hall in April.
Photo courtesy of Queens Borough President’s Office
As the state is rolling out legal adult-use cannabis with an emphasis on social equity, community boards have been left with a novel responsibility of approving the dispensary applications that are rolling in.
At this month’s monthly meeting that congregates the chairs of all 14 community boards in Queens, a frustration with the state’s lack of support in adopting the new responsibility dominated the meeting. All who spoke up at the Oct. 16 meeting in Kew Gardens expressed a need for more structure to deal with the various challenges that are already coming up in bringing legal dispensaries to communities across Queens.
“There’s no system, we have no guidance,” said Community Board 9 Chair Sherry Algredo, who represents Richmond Hill and Kew Gardens.
The initial goal of the meeting was to give the board chairs a presentation on the workforce and labor laws regarding the cannabis industry in New York. Katie Shane, deputy political director of Local 338, and Cecilia Oyediran, senior outreach associate for the Cannabis Workforce Initiative, were both present at the meeting and shared updates. But the focus of the meeting fell on various issues with the rollout that they acknowledged, but could not do much to address.
Most chairs emphasized that the state was overburdening the volunteer-run community boards, without the guidance needed to take on the new process. After an application comes in, the board is given just 30 days to review applications, make a decision and send any thoughts back to the state, which makes the ultimate decision. But all who spoke up at the meeting agreed that 30 days was far from enough time.
Vincent Arcuri of Community Board 5, which includes Ridgewood and Glendale among other central Queens neighborhoods, said that so far seven applications have come in. Some of them he…
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