Croton narrows where cannabis shops could open, creates assistant village manager post

Croton-on-Hudson's Board of Trustees decided at a Sept. 16 work session where adult-use cannabis dispensaries should be allowed to open in the village, and directed the village attorney to turn those choices into a draft zoning law. Dispensaries would be allowed only by special permit, and only in a short list of commercial and industrial pockets: the C-2 commercial district outside the village's gateway overlay zones, the C-1RA stretch of North Riverside Avenue, the light industrial district, and the North End Gateway along Albany Post Road north of Warren Road, including one vacant C-1 parcel inside that gateway. A village moratorium on dispensaries is still in effect while the board works out permanent rules, Village Attorney Lori Lee Dickson said. The draft in the packet, listed on the agenda as Local Law Introductory No. 16 of 2026, was written to conform with the state's Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, Village Manager Bryan Healy said, and what he needed from the board was the map. The draft pulls adult-use cannabis dispensaries out of general retail and defines them as a use of their own, so they can be slotted into the village's schedule of uses. As written now, Dickson said, the use "doesn't exist in the use tables. So it's up to you to determine where, if, when, etcetera." Read 26:37▶ "You want it to be a special permit use," Read 27:51▶ Healy said, and the board agreed that would hold wherever dispensaries are allowed. Mayor Brian Pugh set out his own test. "The big concern for most people is proximity to schools," Read 30:25▶ Pugh said, "or proximity to places where children congregate, which is to say the upper Village during lunchtime." Read 30:28▶ Pugh said he would rule out the C-1 district and the Municipal Place Gateway, which between them take in the Upper Village and Maple Street near the middle school, and was comfortable with the rest.

State law sets distinct distance rules. Cannabis Law § 72 bars a retail dispensary on the same street and within 500 feet of a building containing a school, or within 200 feet of a building used exclusively as a house of worship. The statute measures between the centers of the nearest qualifying entrances, with specific rules for buildings set back from the street. State law For dispensary-to-dispensary spacing, the usual state requirement is 2,000 feet in municipalities with fewer than 20,000 residents. The Cannabis Control Board may approve a Public Convenience and Advantage exception, but its rules do not permit that exception below 1,000 feet. An exception also depends on other conditions, including how long a nearby dispensary has been open. The 1,000-foot figure discussed by trustees is the exception's floor, not the ordinary separation requirement. OCM guidance, pages 1–2 Deputy Mayor Len Simon said the village already has a dispensary under construction at the corner of Riverside and Benedict, and asked how far away a second one would have to be. Healy said he measured 983 feet from the front door of 370 South Riverside to a realtor's office at 2 Croton Point Avenue, below the 1,000-foot figure under discussion, though he had drawn the line "as the crow flies" Read 50:46▶ and did not know for certain how the state defines the measurement. Trustee Stacey Nachtaler pushed back on allowing dispensaries in the light industrial parcels near the Metro-North station, which she said she regards as a gateway into the village for drivers coming off Route 9. "I would hate to see another shop open up there. We already have one around the corner," Read 49:06▶ Nachtaler said. Healy said the light industrial district amounts to only about four parcels, among them the Metro-North station property and the old Croton North station. Residents have asked why the village does not simply ban dispensaries outright, Nachtaler said. It cannot: Croton had its chance to opt out in 2021 and opted out only of on-site consumption, not retail. "Under the current state law, once you've opted in, you cannot opt out," Read 41:07▶ Healy said. The board also directed that the local draft include a 1,000-foot minimum separation between dispensaries and a 500-foot buffer around public youth facilities. Healy said nothing in Croton currently qualifies as a public youth facility, but the board decided to spell the buffer out anyway. Writing the state numbers into local code, Dickson said, leaves Croton better placed to argue its own rule still applies if the state later changes a standard. Pugh floated going further and applying the same districts and distances to direct-to-customer sales of alcohol and tobacco, meaning package stores and smoke shops rather than restaurants or bars. "That is my personal suggestion. I don't know if that's the consensus of the board," Read 31:57▶ Pugh said. Dickson urged the board to let her research it first: the state occupies the field on alcohol licensing far more completely than the cannabis law does. "I would like not to just add it willy nilly and then jeopardize this," Read 62:16▶ Dickson said. Croton adopted its own distance rules in 2021 and had to amend them once the state set its own, Healy said. "The code is a living document," Read 54:56▶ Healy said.

A deputy for the village manager

Earlier in the evening the board adopted a local law creating the position of assistant village manager, a job the village has not had since 2015. Local Law Introductory No. 15 of 2026 amends Chapter 31 of the Village Code and becomes Local Law No. 12 of 2026 on adoption. Simon moved the resolution and Nachtaler seconded it, and the board voted to adopt after a public hearing. Healy said the position existed from 2008 to 2015, was replaced by a secretary to the manager, and that the workload in his office has outgrown that arrangement. It adds no headcount: the office has two positions now and will still have two. Westchester County told the village the position had to be on the books before it could be created, Healy said. It is a deputy rather than an assistant: "This is a true deputy position, so it requires a certain level of confidentiality as well," Read 4:04▶ Dickson said. Simon said he had drawn up his own list of ten reasons for the job. Among them: the growth of federal and state regulations, project delivery, oversight of a planner and a grant writer the village did not used to have, intergovernmental relations, and the need for a number two who can step in. "We have issues that no one even thought of ten or fifteen years ago, like cyber security," Read 5:37▶ Simon said. Nachtaler said she supported the position but wanted to know whether the board should have a role in filling it. "I personally feel it would be great if it had, you know, board of trustee approval," Read 10:09▶ Nachtaler said. "That's basically an attack on the cornerstone of the council manager form of government," Read 10:40▶ Healy said, though he prefaced it by telling Nachtaler he knew she did not mean it that way. Under that structure, he said, the board hires the manager and the manager hires everyone else. "This position will be acting as the manager's subordinate, not as the manager's replacement," Read 13:53▶ Pugh said, 99.9-something percent of the time by his estimate. Making the assistant a board appointee, he said, would complicate the chain of command, and he doubted the manager could then discipline or remove the person. "Ultimately, what we're talking about is the office of the village manager," Read 16:02▶ Simon said, and he was comfortable leaving the choice to the manager. "I personally wasn't involved at all in the recruitment or, you know, the job description or anything like that," Read 16:29▶ Nachtaler said. Another trustee asked for a fuller public account of how the search had run. Healy said the village received close to 30 applications through reliable channels after a recruitment pamphlet went up on the village website, LinkedIn and other recruitment sites. Nine went into a first tier and 13 into a second, and Healy said he picked five to interview. The interview panel was Healy, Simon, the village clerk and a senior office assistant from the clerk's office. Five were interviewed over Zoom, then a second round was held in person; of three finalists, one withdrew and the village met with the other two. Healy said the search took a little more than three months from start to finish and that he hoped to bring one of the finalists on soon. Healy said the law now goes to New York State to be filed with the secretary of state, which he said takes seven to ten days, after which the village gives the county the documentation it needs to approve creating the position. Asked about two vacancies in the manager's office, Healy said the secretarial position will not be filled for now and the part-time communications job is a "wait and see" Read 22:40▶ until the new assistant has weighed in. Healy said the board had already set the money aside in contingency, and that a budget resolution moving it into the manager's office salary line will come before the board. "So the funds are accounted for," Read 24:18▶ Healy said. The board also approved the night's warrant, $270,866.03 across the general, water, sewer, capital and trust funds. The general fund accounted for $169,168.81 of that total and the capital fund $66,299.69. What comes next: an updated cannabis draft carrying the districts, the 1,000-foot floor and the youth-facility buffer, with the moratorium holding until a permanent law is adopted. The assistant manager law heads to Albany for filing, and the county's sign-off is the last step before Croton's new second-in-command can start.