• everyone to the village of Croton on Hudson planning board meeting for
• Tuesday, 04/14/2026.
• We have
• two items on the agenda. The first being new new business.
• Apologize if I say the name wrong. Mitzi Weiss,
• attorney for Best Dispensary near me, 370 South Riverside Avenue.
• Application for change of use from retail to cannabis retail
• dispensary.
• So if the applicant would like to come forward and
• and
• we have our attorney, Jeanette, here tonight,
• the village attorney, and
• and we've asked her to
• address
• the
• issues that the planning board has to
• debate
• and tonight
• and what's kind of
• within our purview of being able to
• do and what's in not within our purview to be able to do.
• And I think it's important for everyone because we've gotten
• a ton of correspondence
• and
• all welcome and all
• five of us I think have
• spent a lot of time reviewing everyone's
• correspondence and it's been excellent.
• Mostly
• in opposition, but some
• in favor.
• But
• Jeanette, if you can kind of take us through tonight.
• And what I will say is we're gonna listen to the applicant and their presentation,
• and then
• this is not a public hearing.
• However, this board traditionally has allowed for public comment.
• So we will do that tonight,
• and
• we will
• have rules about it. When it's not a public hearing, they're limited
• to three minutes
• public comment,
• and traditionally,
• we ask that those comments be
• addressed
• to the board.
• It's not a back and forth,
• and we would like decorum for the meeting.
• Please no
• yelling out from the audience or raising your hand or anything like that when
• the times come that we're gonna listen to some public comment.
• You know, we'll do that in a very orderly way,
• and
• and and then we'd ask that, you know, we're not gonna look
• to repeat the same thing over and over and over because we have had a lot of correspondence. We've heard a lot of people's viewpoints on this and
• we'll have to take that into consideration,
• especially within the context of what our purview is as the planning board for the village.
• So Jeanette, if you can kind of take us through
• The
• let's get this.
• What's before the planning board tonight is a minor site plan approval
• application
• for a change of use from
• a
• deli,
• which is the current use to a cannabis dispensary.
• The
• just as a at at the outset, of course, I'm sure most people know this, the village has opted
• into or has not opted out of the New York's
• cannabis law, the state law
• as to dispensaries.
• It did opt out for consumption
• on-site,
• but it did not opt out for
• cannabis dispensaries. So they are permitted
• as long as they meet the
• state's
• distance requirements.
• The
• distance requirements
• pertain
• to most
• relevant here
• pertain to
• schools and and facilities that are governed by and and subject to the state's education law.
• And as everyone probably knows, there's a day care center nearby
• and that day care center, Happy Hearts is the name, is not a state regulated, state education department regulated
• school
• or facility and therefore
• its proximity to this site
• cannot
• be
• considered by the planning board as a basis
• for denying
• the application.
• The
• Village has a definition of cannabis shop in
• the
• Village code
• and that is the fact that it's a defined use is the principal reason this matter is before the Planning Board for minor site plan approval.
• And
• that's the
• major part of this.
• The Planning Board really is limited to time, place and manner
• restrictions.
• If the
• applicant meets what the Planning Board has requested in terms of reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions,
• the
• Planning Board may approve the application.
• So parking is a subject that the
• planning board will consider.
• Trash disposal is another item.
• Things that are routinely
• considered whenever there is a retail use.
• And with that, I will turn it back to you.
• members of the planning board, village attorney. My name is Mickey Weiss from the law office of Mickey j Weiss Law. I'm here on behalf of the applicant, Best Dispensary
• near Me Bay Street doing business as Mindset Cannabis Shop.
• We are here before you
• seeking approval
• to locate our adult use dispensary at 370 South Riverside Ave here in the village.
• The proposed use involves the continued use of the premises for retail purposes, transitioning from an existing retail convenience store use to a state licensed adult use cannabis retail dispensary.
• The underlying zoning classification of the use remains retail.
• No exterior site changes are proposed.
• The building footprint,
• access points, and parking figuration will remain unchanged.
• The existing retail space is approximately 650
• 1,650
• square feet.
• And my understanding is there are 11 parking spots right now that have been created for
• the mixed use, five for the residents up top, six for the dispensary.
• I spoke with the village manager this morning. I requested
• permits for the parking lot that sits at the end of Benedict Street. He told me we can get two of them. So, that would bring it up to eight and then, we will also to the extent necessary, we'll get a parking permit over at the train station to satisfy the parking requirements of nine. So, we should be good with respect to the required parking spots,
• even though we're a less intense use than what's currently there, which which I'm about to get you.
• And so the proposed use is anticipated to generate fewer daily customer visits than the existing convenience store use, both of which involve short term trips.
• The current retail shop sees approximately 250 customers a day. The average duration time of each customer spends inside the store is approximately ten minutes.
• The cannabis shop is anticipated to see about a 125
• customers a day, half as many customers
• as the current use who will each spend an average of less than five minutes in the store. Accordingly, the proposed use will be less intense than the existing retail use. The store would be operational seven days a week. We're proposing 09:30AM
• to 09:30PM
• to,
• be within the village
• code's hours of operations.
• And
• before I bring up the witnesses to provide some testimony, I am in receipt of the comment letter. And if I could just go through that
• briefly before I bring the architect up, and then
• mister Silvestri,
• who is the representative on behalf of Mindset Canada shop.
• So I just advised of the facility operations. Look, Security, we're gonna have cameras inside and out. Our architect will come inside, and we can flip to the sheet, which I think is 200 on here, which gives a
• description of exactly where all these cameras are gonna be. Every single inch of the interior of the store is covered in cameras.
• We have to keep
• camera,
• footage under the law for a minimum of sixty days. We get storage that keeps it even further. We have to have backup generator
• for
• the,
• DVR that saves. We also have cloud based storage. These cameras are,
• active all the time. We have access to them on our phones.
• To the extent that the police department wanted access, we'd be willing to provide access
• live feed to the police department if they if they so chose.
• We'll have cameras on the exterior as well just so,
• everybody's understanding. The lighting's gonna gonna remain the same. We're not proposing any changes to the exterior of the building
• nor to believe it's necessary.
• IDs are checked twice. Right? The second you walk in, you're checked at the door. We scan you through Verascan. It's it's it's a software system that can tell whether or not IDs are fake or real. Okay? And so you can't get
• past the door
• until you show ID, and you gotta be 21 to enter. There's no exceptions.
• And so,
• yes, we're across the street from children,
• but there's no way that child is ever gonna be able to come inside of our store, make a purchase, and leave. Alright? You cannot come in without proper government ID. Alright?
• Once you get inside the store, that person, once they get to the register again after they've walked around and made their choice, they're gonna be checked again their ID before they check out. So we check ID twice in the store, which is not a requirement under the regulations, but it's best practices, and it's what some other states do require.
• Everything,
• comes prepackaged.
• Right? And so there's no
• way to over serve somebody. There's no consumption allowed on premises. There's no opening up of product on premises.
• Anybody who consumes must leave the store
• with a package
• that is not see through. So it's a discreet package. You're gonna walk out, and you're gonna go to your car, and you're gonna leave. And we don't allow loitering, and if we see it, we'll see it on the cameras.
• We'll have our person checking IDs be able to
• also get up out of their chair and and tell somebody if they're loitering outside that they've gotta move it on along.
• So as far as security goes, we've been we've been doing this a while. We haven't had any issues
• ever.
• We operate in Tarrytown.
• We've been open in Tarrytown about a year. We see about a 125 customers a day or so.
• It's good business.
• Not one issue. Not one issue with with with the village, not one complaint,
• and we're good partners. Right? We give back to the community
• over and above the 4% that you guys are gonna get between the county and municipality.
• We're big supporters of the police department.
• We submitted a recommendation from the chief of police,
• the Tarrytown Police Department,
• that speaks to how thorough we are as an organization as to how we approach safety and security.
• I've never seen I this is for the past five, six years in multiple states. I've never seen a chief of police put that down on paper. And that, again, goes to show you
• how important that is to this group.
• Lighting the lighting is sufficient right now.
• We don't believe that we're gonna need to add any exterior lighting,
• to the facility.
• Trash.
• Trash is gonna be handled in the ordinary course like it's handled now. We do not dispose of any cannabis waste. We do not take cannabis back. If in fact somebody has a return because there's a defective product, we return it to the supplier.
• That's it.
• So,
• because
• there's
• no use of price, we really don't generate any waste.
• The waste that's generated by the current tenant, the deli, is gonna be far more significant than any waste that we generate because, again, everything is single packaged, served out the door. We don't sell food. We don't sell drinks. We're prohibited from selling any of that. And so you you just don't have that
• have that issue with with trash.
• Okay? And, again, we know cannabis whatsoever
• is thrown out in the regular trash ever.
• As far as loading,
• we will receive very few deliveries each week. The deliveries will be made at in the largest vehicle, a sprinter van. It'll be unmarked most of the time. It'll just come in their regular vehicle.
• The packages that come in are totes, plastic totes, like one of them, maybe smaller packaging.
• Like so you're not you're not talking about, like, an 18 wheeler coming into the village and parking. Like, you're talking about a car being able to park in a normal parking lot. If we know a delivery is gonna come, we're gonna reserve a parking spot that we have out of the six in front of the store.
• We're gonna have that they're gonna let us know that they're there,
• and we're gonna bring them in the back door.
• Alright? They're not walking through the store. They're gonna walk in the back door, and then we're gonna, you know, do our inventory intake. Everything's covered by cameras. And so that once we review their manifest,
• check everything to make sure that everything in the manifest matches the product, there are no expired products that some of the suppliers might be trying to give us.
• Takes about ten, fifteen minutes,
• and the supplier will then leave, go back to his vehicle, and he'll be gone, and the delivery will be done. We will try to do those deliveries before we open.
• 09:00 in the morning would be ideal for us because we're gonna anticipate opening at 09:30, and so there would be no customers in any of the vehicles. Hopefully, the residents won't be in their parking spots, so there shouldn't be any issues with respect to
• the company receiving deliveries.
• I've addressed the parking space
• issue with you. We've got nine now, right, with the two permits
• for the parking spot from the village, which we'll agree to purchase plus
• the
• what when I looked at the
• approved site plan that we have from Dairy Mart when they when the expansion happened,
• There's 11 marked spots,
• and six of those
• are marked for
And I I just went by there also. Mhmm. There's there's six of them for tenants. Okay. So
• five are marked for Dairy Mart.
• However,
• one of those
• on the site plan is not really a parking space. It's the
• aisleway for a handicap spot.
• So I think what we have
• is
• 11 spots,
• and six of them are for earmarked for residents,
• and five of them are for
• Dairy Mart, which is really four, I believe.
So most of our employees take the train. Right? In Tarrytown, they're on the train line. We're on the same train line here is my understanding.
• To the extent that they drive,
• we need the parking spots for the customers. Right. And so we'll have them park at the train station. You know, Vinny will park at the train station if he has to. You know, we're not gonna make it so that it becomes a burden on the town. Again, we're a less intense use than what's there right now. We're gonna see less customers who are gonna be in the store a less
• amount of time. And so if the parking was good for the deli as it is, it's gonna be fine for us. I think I misspoke. I think there's five and six.
• So I In any event, whatever whatever the case is as a less intense use Right. We're gonna see half as many people who are gonna be there half as much of the time.
• The parking should not be an issue. You know, from And and how do you
document I mean, how do you I mean, I understand that you have the Tarrytown store. So the Tarrytown store is a
• a benchmark for you, if you will, in terms of
• numbers of people that you see each day and then and the duration of the time that they're there. I mean, I would submit that
• I I
• it's probably very
equal to the amount of time that people are there. And if if if we have an affidavit We can track it. Right? Yeah. We can we actually track it. We have a point of sale system that tracks how long the customer is in the store. So the data I'm giving you is accurate. And so the data If it's it's half of what It's half of what and so, you know, the the owner of the dairy mart submitted a certification that said his customer there for ten minutes a day. So that's what he's certified to. I know that I can certify that the average customer stays in our store less than five minutes because we have the data to show you that. And I can attach it as an exhibit if I needed to. I don't have to because this is not an adversarial, you know, we're we're back and forth here. Right?
• And we're seeking approval from from this board. But if if we had to, we could show you the data.
• Could pull up my phone and show you how long the the the customers are in the store because it it tracks that.
• And so we're sure that that's how long they'll be in the store here because it's similar because we run the stores the same. We want them to look the same. The aesthetic is upscale.
• If we can go to the three sixty tour that I see is up on the screen, you guys could take a look about the renderings for the store and and the design and effort that we make to go in here. Like, this is a
• very,
• expensive build out. Okay? I mean, I don't know what like, it's it's high end. Right? And so we are not bringing,
• a neon
• sign
• smoke shop into your town.
• We are bringing a high end shop that's gonna function and look like an Apple store that people are gonna be proud to walk into and walk out of, and we're gonna be proud to be running the store.
• And so,
• again,
• as it relates to
• the parking, just to go back to that, whatever we've gotta do to satisfy the word, if we gotta go rent three spots and get three permits at the train station, we'll do that.
• Plus the two at the the
• the parking area down the street, plus the spots that we have in front of the store so that we can be sure that we won't create any
• parking
• problems for any of the other businesses
• or people because our goal here is to be a good business partner. Now we went around
• to let all the local businesses know that we were coming in, and we got a very, very good reception. Most seemed incredibly excited that we were going to be here because the data shows that
• cannabis dispensaries improve
• the bottom line to those businesses that surround them. Right? It brings more people to your town. They spend more time here, and so that helps the community. It's gonna help the restaurants.
• Right? It's gonna help the bike shop because we're gonna be able to do cross promotional stuff with them because we really like I said, we get involved
• with,
• with the community.
• As far as curbside delivery, we're not gonna do it. We don't I'm against delivery. Nobody's shown me how to make money doing it yet, and we're just not gonna do it. We're not gonna do curbside pickup either.
• It's just too involved. People can park their car. They can preorder, which we encourage, and so you can place an order ahead of time. We will have it ready. You will be in and out of our store in a minute.
• Right? And and we have a separate dedicated pickup window for you to come,
• pick it up, and get out of the store. And so it we we we run this like a very advanced, mature retail operation.
• This is not our first store. We run successful operations. We are very detail oriented and organized more so than
• most people that I represent. I represent
• most of the successful operators in the state of New Jersey, some in the state of New York,
• and this group is more organized.
• And so,
• as far as the grand opening, we're happy to submit whatever plan. If you guys didn't want us to have a grand opening because you thought it would be problematic for the
• that's fine. I think it would hurt the village as much as it would hurt us in terms of us being partners and the revenue share that we have. But if we just got a soft open and not have, like, you know, balloons and a ribbon cutting, which we would love to, and have everybody here and and the village board there cutting the ribbon with us, like we've done in some other municipalities.
• It's we won't push back on that, and we're okay with it.
• But if we could close the street down, if there's a street fair, like we did in Tarrytown or grand opening we held on the big parade they have on June 1. So the street was shut down anyway. We had a table out front. We had the grand opening.
• Everybody got to know that we were we were now in town. Alright? If we can't do that here, that's fine. If we can, wonderful. But we're whatever
• works best with the village is how we want to proceed.
• With that said, I do have with us
• my architect, Arlenas Dominguez, who can run through the existing conditions on-site and what we propose.
• And then I also have Vincent Silvestri here to run through any of the operational questions,
• that I haven't touched on. He can run you through what a typical customer order,
• might look like, and then,
• we can go from there.
• Arlenis?
• Yeah. You can.
• Good evening. Arlenis Dominguez. I am a licensed
• architect in,
• eight states, New York, as well, and my license is in good standing.
• I prepared the plans that we have on the screen today.
• This sheet here is t 100. This is a title sheet that pretty much goes over the summary
• of our site
• and the use and code compliance.
• The plan at the lower right is our egress plan, so that's just showing that all occupants would have safe and proper egress.
• If you go to the next page,
• you can skip over that. That's ADA requirements.
• Those are structural.
• A
• what is that? A 100?
• Yep.
• Alright. So at the top right of this page,
• you'll see the existing conditions of the current space.
• The the entry will remain the same, which is at the top left corner.
• Then you walk in and
• to plan left is the current service counter.
• The body of the of the Sales Floor has a couple of displays
• that we're not showing as furniture.
• And then
• at the rear of of the of the store, which is planned right,
• there are walk in there's a walk in freezer,
• a couple of reach in freezers,
• an existing
• toilet room, and then an existing
• kitchenette.
• So if you scroll down to the center, yep,
• that's the proposed plan.
• So, again, our entry door is remaining where it exists.
• Our our service desk is now gonna be proper
• front and center when you walk in.
• To the plan right, you're I mean, to the plan left, you're gonna see kiosks,
• so that's for
• ordering.
• And then the service desk is also to attend to to clients as well.
• Back of house is going to be the vault and that's where all the product is is kept.
• Bottom left is the office slash lactation room.
• And then when you go all the way to the right of the plan,
• that existing exterior door is going to be
• the delivery door.
• And then there the existing kitchenette will remain, and that will serve as a a sort of break area for the
• employees,
• and then the existing toilet room will remain.
• If you scroll down a little bit more,
• those are just finishes. So you can go to the next page.
• So on this page, we're just reflecting
• new power,
• new lighting,
• interior.
• And
• as Mickey
• explained, there is a security plan
• to the current right of this left of the screen,
• and that is exhibiting
• where all the cameras would be located, interior and exterior,
• all card readers, so all doors are secured,
• and I'll let operations go into detail on how that functions.
• The next sheet
• is just exhibiting
• elevations
• of the interior millwork
• displays,
• some detailing on how that would be constructed,
• and these are just further construction details. So that's about the conclusion of the set.
• So we have obviously no experience with with shops of this nature, so we'll have a lot of questions for you.
• But just starting with your checking counter,
• you had let's just say four or five people come in at the same time. We we'd like to avoid people queuing up outside.
• How would you handle scenario like that where you've got a a number of IDs you gotta check all at once? The ID scanner is instant.
It is I mean, it's in in in. So if we had four people outside, there's plenty of space in the store for them to line up and, you know, behind the stanchion that's there, and and we'll check their IDs. You're you cannot get in our store without an ID.
• The truth is is we don't have any lines. Like, we pride ourselves in getting people in and out, and and we practice it. And we train it, and we drill it in, and we retrain it if people fail to follow the
• standard operating procedure.
• Can I ask where you got your estimate of a 125 people a day? It's it's it's really what we're seeing right now in Tarrytown. We've been open there a year. Also, the fact that we've been open a year and and the
• the program the cannabis program in New York is now more mature. It's five years old. We've got a bunch of dispensaries that are gonna be opening in Ossining. You've got existing
• dispensaries that are already open, and so we've gotta get those customers who are going elsewhere
• into our store.
• We're also in the center of town. We're not on a main drag. There's not 40,000 cars that go by the store a day. And so it's gonna take quite some time to get even a 100 people into the store. It's gonna take us at least six months, if not longer.
• And so it'll be hopefully, what it will be a slow build,
• and and the goal is to get there up to $1.25.
• If we get more, wonderful.
• That's great. I mean, we can I we know the store supports two fifty now, and so we've got significant
• room to grow in the event that we were blessed to have so many people wanna come to our store rather than go to somebody else's store who's really selling the same product? We're selling an experience here that's gonna be different from a different experience. We all sell the same products.
• Right? So it's more like a convenience store. So why are you gonna come in to the village unless we're delivering
• something unique
• that's different from what others are delivering elsewhere?
• at the
• peak hours in Tarrytown
• for Four to seven. Customers. And what's the maximum number that you have at a time, generally?
I mean, we won't see we I haven't seen the cameras with more than 10 people in the store at a time. And, again, that means they all have to arrive at the same time
• because we get them in and out so quickly. And with that said, as as you have up here, we've got four kiosks over here. We've got
• one, two, three. I don't see the the Four four POS. Four POS. And so that's eight
• off the bat people we can handle without anybody even being in the center of the floor. Alright? Another checking in. We we can handle a good amount of flow, and because the transactions
• move so quickly,
• there will never be a line,
• I promise you, that builds up anywhere here. And if if for some odd reason we got so busy, what we would do is we would we have a text message system where similar to restaurants. Alright. We're too busy. We're gonna send you a message when we're not.
• Maybe in the meantime, go shop at some other stores in the village,
• place an online order, and come back. When your online's order, we'll text you it's ready. You come, you'll pick it up in a minute, and you'll
• Is there any flexibility on the hours that you propose to be open? Absolutely.
• Because I think the idea that right now in your application, it says 09:30 to 09:30.
• To me, the ideal is ten to seven, maybe 07:30 if you're still at peak traffic at seven. But staying open till
• 09:30
• maybe isn't
isn't optimal for our village. So what are the permitted hours that are allowed under the code?
that I mean, seven's too early with all due respect. I mean, people come home from work. They wanna come out. Like, you know, we're open upstate and some other stores until nine.
• I think
• we wouldn't wanna stay open if we weren't seeing customers. And so if it didn't make sense to stay open until 09:30 because the village is quiet after nine, we're gonna shut down
at nine. I have a hard time finding food in this village after 09:00. So, you know, I I think a little earlier. We we can discuss it more later, but I think that might be
• desirable.
• But we can revisit that later. The
• come to your your your company,
• do they make appointments ahead of time? Because I know other places, they make appointments, they show up at a certain time, they walk in, they get what they want, and they walk out. There's no no line. I think you're thinking of medical
• And so we're not a medical dispensary.
• We're not allowed to hold ourselves out as one. It's
• type of license type in New York. And
• those medical dispensaries generally aren't permitted, the ones that you're speaking of, to sell adult use.
• They do that specifically
• in the hopes that,
• eventually,
• the state will allow them to have more than three recreational licenses, and they can have unlimited number of medicals,
• What do you sell?
• I mean, is it in So we sell we sell pre prepackaged
• flower products.
• We sell pre rolls.
• We sell various sorts of edibles,
• you know, that help you with pain or with sleep or with alertness.
• We sell topicals.
• We sell
• concentrates in various forms, and what you'll see is your pens or
• some other more from, you know, medical community far more advanced,
• rosin.
• Anything that is legally permissible, drinks
• Mhmm. To be sold in the state of New York under the the program, we will carry if the customer wants it.
• How do I pay for this? Do I have a credit card? Do I have cash? Do I have a state card or something? So believe it or not, you can pay for it in any however you want. If you wanna bring in cash, you could pay cash. We'll have an ATM machine there. If you wanna use your ATM
• card, your debit card, you could do that. And we have a text to pay, system credit as well.
• You can also use ACH.
• You could any there's traditional banking. So all the rumors that you hear of it's it's a cash heavy business. It's it's cash heavy, but it's not more than 50%.
• And we have armored car cash pickup that comes once a week to come and get the cash. If we realize we have more cash, we'll have them come more than once a week. We don't we don't take the cash ourselves to the bank. I'd like to ask the architect.
• and the
• there's an alleyway, short alleyway. It's not very wide. And it's an apartment building next door.
• If you stand here and you woke up,
• the roof of four seventy
• overlaps the roof of
• the building next door.
• I mean, you you won't see you may see it here, you may not, but it overlaps it.
• I I've never seen that in my life, and I don't know if it's just something that happens allowed or not. But before you put a lot of money,
• you may wanna check on it.
Well, we're only gonna be on the Ground Floor where the retail shop is, and we're a tenant. And so I we'll check on it. But as far as as our operations go, I I I don't think that would impact us in in any way. Alright. Now there's two door you you said there's two doors. They walk in the front door and they walk out the back door. No. No. They're gonna walk in and out of the front door. The the deliveries are gonna come in through the side back door so that we don't have to have the delivery driver with the products come in through
• the floor. Similarly, the cash pickup
• team will also come through that back door. I do believe there's a third door
• to the
• there's no
• signage shown or
• Right now, we we
• my
• understanding is we had to come back before a board anyway to get signage. And so we did not show any signage here because we were,
• under the impression that
• we couldn't get any signage approved at this meeting anyways, and so we'll save the signage for another day. And
• speaking,
• we don't want the,
• public to be able to see any clearly visible cannabis products.
• And so the film is
• what we're proposing now. If
• there were any other suggestions that you'd like to see instead of that film, like the tint that we have in Tarrytown where it's more during the day, it keeps people from being able to see in. And at night, there's a little bit, you know, you could see the lights in, so it looks more inviting
• and
• attractive. But, you know, we can work through that with with you as a condition of of approval, hopefully.
• The status of your license. What, So
we have a provisional license from the state of New York. We have site proximity protection. What that means is that the office of cannabis management has,
• advised that this site meets all of the requirements
• to be issued a full license.
• At this point, we're just waiting from
• the the office of cannabis management to put our application before the cannabis control board for approval. It's administrative
• and just a matter of time.
• There's a world you didn't approve us, they could still give us the license.
• Right?
• It doesn't mean we can open because we don't have your approval to open locally, but it's it's kind of like a dual
• parallel path. We gotta get the state license. We gotta get our local approvals.
• We can't open until we have CO
• or inspection from the office of cannabis management, and then they give us the permission
• put a note into OCM
• tomorrow morning. What's OCM? We get approved tonight. The Office of Cannabis Management. Thank you. And so what generally happens is there's a lot of licenses that are just sitting out there because many people can't figure out a way to
• open up the stores. It's this is hard. Alright? It's really, really hard. And so if you reach out to OCM and let them know that
• you're in motion, and I can say, hey. We were approved at the planning board. They're issuing building permits. We'll get on one of the next agendas,
• in the next two months, which will give us enough time to,
• get everything ready on our end between getting building permits issued,
• mobilizing the construction team, building out, getting the CEO, hiring, training,
• having OCM come in inspect, making sure that we get the CEO from you guys. There's there's
• there's a lot, about a thousand steps that are involved between now and and then.
• But the licenses, at this point,
• everything, all boxes have been checked
• and we'll we'll be awarded the license,
• you know, when OCM gets to it. Okay.
• maybe there's some hours where it's not so busy, you don't need to be fully staffed or can be peak hours. We'll need
• full staff. What's
• what's the number of the range of number of employees you have inside the building? We can run with as few as two. Mhmm.
• At peak,
• we're about six.
• And that is that is and we will not be at peak
• for quite some peak means we gotta be at a 125
• plus people a day.
• I don't expect us to have more than three employees
• initially
• to start. I don't expect to have more than,
• you know, twenty, thirty customers first month, thirty, forty second month, etcetera, etcetera,
• etcetera.
And one of those employees is always dedicated to security or how does that work? So we have somebody who's always checking IDs. That
• busy times will be stationed at the door.
• That person will if it's not busy and we're running on two, there'll be one person who's gotta really handle the back of the house, one the front. We can make sure that person stays at the front door until a customer comes in, and then they can go handle the customer.
• Generally, we don't like to run on two. We prefer to run on three and at at a minimum, that one person at the door checking IDs, one person behind the register, one person in the vault. And so,
• between three and six is where we'll be at
• for
a large portion of at least the first year. Alright. Good. I think it would be helpful to the board to have
• peak hours that that you would anticipate.
• So we can kinda judge whether
• I'm sorry. What did you say? How many customers would you expect during that period, say, per hour?
I mean, it it really averages out not much more than what the average for the day is. You know, one or two more an hour. It's not like we're gonna see an influx of 40 people in an hour.
• I mean, I in in Tarrytown, if if I could bring Vinny up here, he's he's better suited to answer many of these questions as he's gonna be the guy I'm not gonna be the guy running the store. Vinny is. Yeah. And so it'd be think it'd be helpful for Vinny to come up and provide some testimony,
• maybe walk you
• through
• a customer purchase, and then we can jump back into the questions if that would be okay with you. Perfect. Yeah. Awesome. That'd be great. So this is Vincent. Hi. Vincent Silvestri. How are you?
Would you just like me to walk you through the Why don't you tell me who are first? Sure. Vincent Silvestri, I do run the store. I'm on premise seven days a week.
• So a typical transaction for somebody to come to the store would obviously be showing up,
• checking their ID,
• getting them into the store,
• letting most people that walk into the store already know what they're looking for. They pre ordered and they're walking up to the cash register,
• showing their idea second time.
• The bud tender is making sure that they have the right product,
• showing the product to the client,
• and then that transaction is done and then that client leaves.
• Sometimes
• customers come to the store their first time, again, get checked with their ID, they're in the store,
• might be a first timer. We ask them if they need any help.
• We would guide them through their transaction,
• bring them up to the kiosk,
• let them order their product. If they had any questions, we'd be happy to answer them for them. And then, they would again do the same transaction like the person that pre ordered did, would walk up to the register,
• show their license,
• make sure their product is right, and then take their product and then leave the store.
• the dwell time as they call it, people, amount of time people spend in a store is higher in New York State than say Colorado or someplace that's been there for a while.
• So,
• you know, this being a brand new store and a brand new town,
• people would come in for consultation
• and that sort of thing. So
• I guess it's safe to anticipate that the dwell time, the time they spend the store would might be longer than
• a year from now or some such thing.
• So
• the typical time for somebody to be in the store being tracked on our POS system which we can we check on our phones is is he said less than five minutes which is is like
• literally four and a half minutes
• for for average person to come into the store and leave.
• Most people that do visit the store
• are an in and out. They they don't wanna hang out. They're regular. They know what they want. They've ordered it. Most people are just pre ordering, walking in and walking out.
• It will be a new store. There will be some curiosity. They would wanna see what we put together. They will come in.
• For the most part, it's a five minute transaction
• for somebody to be in the store.
• Mickey explained earlier, we're not selling anything different than any other dispensary sells.
• The difference is the environment
• and what we're creating.
• Okay? So we're trying to create something where people like to come, feel comfortable, grab their stuff, and leave.
• In the beginning, they might spend few more minutes when they come in just to take the visual, but for the most part, those people are coming in,
• taking their product. Most of the people don't even wanna be seen walking into the store and then they wanna take their product home
• and consume and do what they do with their product.
Yeah. The the reason I'm kind of asking about, length of visit, duration of visit is to make sure the parking spots
• can support Yeah. You know I understand. People that tend to linger and
• take up a spot for a a longer period of time. Yeah. I've
not to cut you off. I've Go ahead. Visited the area quite often. Obviously, we're making a big investment.
• So when I come to the area, I see you you have a lot of street parking.
• There is municipal parking lots, and then
• the store does have its own designated spots,
• and I know that we secured a couple extra spots. We
• have more parking here than we do in Tarrytown.
• Tarrytown,
• I do not have a parking lot. Okay? I have street parking and I have two municipal lots.
• All of which are shared
• on a busier street than where their proposed site is.
• That being said, I am fully confident
• that this is not going to impact the community.
• I can only say I'm excited to be part of the community and make this work. So everything that you're proposing with the hours
• I understand you would like us to be open a little earlier,
• but I think the hours work and whatnot.
• Parking will not be an issue.
• That that is gonna be important to us. Yep. We'd like it, obviously, to be, you know, as discreet as as reasonably it can.
• So we would be very interested in seeing some samples of what that might look like.
• as we've done in the past.
• If things met
• in theory with our Mhmm. Needs.
• May I ask you a question? Sure. The does that building have the C 0?
• Which building? The the the apartment building and and your store in the same same enclosure.
• talking about in the village of Croton now? It has a c o for the existing tenant.
• I would I mean, I I imagine. So otherwise, the tenant wouldn't be the the deli would be closed. Right?
• do you know anything about that? Are the prices shown? Is that a temporary seal at the moment? We're working on getting the seal plan?
• That means that means he has one or he doesn't have one? Yeah. I'm really he has a temporary CO. To my understanding, yes.
The building. What does a temporary CO do for someone who's gonna be renting and putting money in and building a store? And will will will it be I'll have to get a.
• mean, they would have to get a a new CEO for the new store. Yeah. But the existing one is a temporary as I understand.
• gentleman wouldn't get it. The this he built the homeowner owner of this of the apartments will get it. Right? Of the building. Of the building. Yes. Okay.
• Are are the prices shown?
I mean, do I walk in and know that that's So we have we have menus online. We have we'll have men digital menus in the store that will display all of our pricing. Yeah. Everything is very transparent. There's 13% sales tax in New York. 9% goes to the state. 4% goes to county slash,
• municipality.
• location
• at the point of sale counter, and so we are ADA accessible.
• And so somebody coming in in a wheelchair will be able to come up to the countertop at a shortened countertop. We design it to handle
• to handle that. Yes.
• other two questions are really for the village. Okay. I I I've seen on many occasions
• people backing out
• and driving right up toward Riverside.
• They don't realize it's a one way street from the back.
• Will there be better signs put up? Mhmm. We'll listen.
Not that I'm aware of, but that's a good point that you make. Maybe. I should read the crosswalk to
be made. Maybe it's just like the streets Right in the front of the people to see. Yeah. Medium strip. Medium strip. Just make sure everybody knows that's one way. Yeah. And that could also be a condition on disapproval.
We could add striping and a big arrow so people know they have to go that way instead of back toward Riverside. It seems simple.
The last thing not necessarily your problem. But that whole strip from Riverside
• to Wayne Street at the end
• is a cut sidewalk.
• There is no double parking for any reason.
The fire department is right on the corner. Mhmm. The ambulance is around the corner, and that street's used constantly twenty four hours a day in any time at all. And look, we we understand that well because in Tarrytown, we're right across the street from the fire department. Yes. I mean, like, literally directly across the street. Are they nice people? Yes. They're wonderful people. So are the police.
• So the
• the marking of of the parking and you have that handicap
• sheet in your in your proposal
• that indicates
• signage and how it's supposed to be laid out. And that is what's shown on the current site plan that's not been implemented properly. So I think that
• that the parking should be
• labeled properly. I mean, the the sort of scratching on the on the ground that currently exists is is totally inadequate and I don't think
• serves the purpose of of of clearly
• marking, okay, so here's where your customers are supposed to be and here's where the tenants for the apartments are supposed to be. I think that would go a long ways towards
just kinda cleaning up the front of the place. And we would agree to do that as a condition of approval. I I we want that. Right? We we're gonna be investing a lot of money into the store. We want it very clear where you could park, what parking spots are ours exclusively,
and we want to make it very convenient for the customer to get in and get out. And it seems to me that all of the spaces that are on premises there should be,
• you know, solely dedicated to customers
• and that any employee would be either in one of those two spaces that you identified down Agreed. When you break the road or
• in the the three additional ones or however many
• is determined to be necessary at the train station. And if people do come by train and and just walk up the hill, then that's
• probably
• a good thing. But, you know, I think we need to make sure that
• I mean, I take I live less than a mile from the train station, and I take my car to the train station and back. So
• because walking up that hill is no It's tough. Yeah. It's it's not the easiest thing to do. So I think making
• sure that we had adequate
• for employees
• as well as customers would be would be, you
know, something that we should look at carefully. You know, in the past, we've suggested and it hasn't always been used, but Village still has all those unused spots
• opposite ShopRite on the end of Riverside before you hit Van Cortlandt Manor, and there's no reason why
• you're talking about,
• if necessary, parking the cars down at the train station. There are spots much closer to your proposed location that would serve your employees well for parking. They just have to walk up the hill and Right. That's fine. That's great. We'll we'll do that. Absolutely. And we can make that What he's saying though, they would be designated,
you know, in some official way that that's where they're gonna park, not in the spots right outside the shop. We we can make a condition of approval for customer parking only signs in front of the store. I would
• be on board with that. So that you know? And we'll get the signs made, and we'll post them, and we'll restrike.
Can we spend a second just looking at those spots? Vince, if you could pull up, I just want make sure there's five
• spots and one handicap, is that?
• pretty carefully. I saw five
• deli spots and six tenant spots.
• But I also saw while I was there, counting, I saw somebody pull up, park in one of the tenant spots and go into the deli. So if you can mark them better than they are marked, they'll Yeah. To Absolutely. Have good relationships with the apartment building and with the tenants. Right?
Five plus Five customer and then you got six tenant parking spaces. Right. And is one of those a handicap? Yeah. Handicaps. Which could be for either. I guess it could be for either. It's just as handicap. Well, the aisle would work for either of those two spaces
• being used as a parking space and it's not marked as there is no marked handicap space. So
• it's like they have 12 spaces because they're just using the aisle that's supposed to be not used for parking. Right. So if they mark down properly, this handicap accessible
• then are we down to fewer
spots or what do we what do we No. We have 11 spots indicated on this on there, and there's five of them that are for the store
• and six of them that are for
• tenants.
• Okay. That according to the site plan. Alright. And we would want the
customers only parking signs in front of those five. Yes. That's what we're saying. Yep. Do we want to put any kind of time limit on that, the
• customer parking?
even if it is longer than a five minute visit, they're not spending twenty minutes in there. They're still gonna be ten minutes to the max. And if they're if they're parked there, they're probably in other other stores in the town instead of ours if they're there for more than five or ten minutes. Yeah. And we and we would need the spot to have our customers park in the park. We're gonna want them out of there. No parking here if you're not shopping in the store for, you know, an hour.
And I know that just for the benefit of of everyone here, that the village manager
• spent
• some time with you guys
• exploring
• other locations
• because we
• I think a lot of people,
• you know, I mean, think the village actually
• anticipated that this might be an an controversial
• spot in the middle of the gateway
• to the village. And so
• can you talk about what you saw and and why it didn't work? And So for eight months many places that you visited?
• in some holes and any gaps that I leave. For about eight months,
• we searched
• through this village high and low.
• We
• knocked on every single business owner's door and asked them to leave their business or if we can buy them out to put a dispensary in
• every single location.
• The place that we are in now was the very last
• spot. And I I mean this.
• Very, very last spot after our fourth time here, after countless hours on the road. I live far from here. I live in Central Jersey. I come up here. Me and Vin are driving around knocking on doors. People are you know, some people are scared because you have two guys coming in. Some people are
• happy to have a conversation, but nobody was willing to leave. Everybody seems to love it here. And so, look, the last place we went into was
• Abby Schott. Abby Schott. Yeah. And Abby was willing to entertain
• what we were Yeah.
• So,
• you know, we got to a deal with him.
• We then
• prepared our plans
• and got everything ready from a state level because we had to submit what's called the municipal notification form to the village. We have to then wait thirty days
• to submit to the office of cannabis management
• for the site proximity protection.
• When we submitted, there was a back and forth with the office of cannabis management as to the day care that was there.
• We worked through that with the OCM, and they granted site proximity protection. Only after we got site proximity protection, which was a few months because we had to work through that issue, did we file the building permits.
• We filed the building permits in October
• or November. November.
• Yeah. So we're for the past
• five months, we've been working with
• the village because of this issue that you identified.
• We
• went back to each and every place
• that
• was proposed to us.
• Either they were in bad areas or the tenant mix wasn't right or they there was just there was literally nothing available. And and we did go and
• run down each and every opportunity.
• There was one other location that we tried to get really, really hard right when you come in. It's the deli.
• Shirley's Deli. Shirley's Deli right next to Franzoso's place.
• Would refute we wanted to knew it We was on the tried to buy it. We tried to rent it. She wouldn't return our phone calls. And so we were left here. This is our only option. We spent,
• countless hours invested, countless dollars invested,
• all trying to find the perfect spot to be here because we wanna be in your town. We wanna be in the village.
• Like, like, Vin's from here. I'm not. But he he brought it up. We did our research.
• This is where we dedicated our time to find a location.
• And we found it, and we worked as best as we could to try to find a different location because we heard the concerns.
• With that said,
• we can't let all of our hard work and this opportunity
• go by when this is permitted here.
• You know, it's allowed here. It's allowed under the state law.
• The truth is is that even
• being here, we wanna be a good partner, but there's no such thing as cannabis retail
• versus regular retail. It's it's retail to retail, And we're here, nevertheless,
• you know, paying professionals, taking our time because we wanna explain to everybody and be here to show as best as we can that we're gonna be a great partner.
• The best partner, the best cannabis partner that you are gonna possibly come before you ever is this group. I know because I worked in this space for five years. I know what there is. I know who there is. And I know this group's the best group because we're here. He's gonna be here every single day.
• You're not gonna get that with anybody else who tries to come into the village. You know? So
• we worked long and hard. This is the spot where where the village is allowing it. You did opt in.
• And the law allows us to be where where we are. And
• with the greatest amount of respect, we're asking for your approval tonight here. I'm excited to be part of the community.
• can you explain
• the proximity
• to the chapel
• 200 feet door to door on the same street. And so I don't think the chapel is on the same street.
• And so
• and I also think door to door I know I know door to door is more than 200 feet because that is a state requirement. So, if the state said you're within 200 feet,
• we would not have site proximity protection, we would not be able to get the state license, we would not be able to open.
• And so, again, day cares,
• our private day cares are not governed under the education law. There would have been a 500 foot buffer from door to door.
• But again,
• day cares are everywhere. Right? They're not they don't receive public money. They're not covered under the law. And so
• we're allowed to be where we are in location to the day care as well. And you've got some kind of a
• reading from
• or the attorneys got an official reading from the state regarding that issue. They did directly. The Office of Canada's Management responded directly
• Yes. And so we
• and, like, that was another hole. It's hard to get a state
• branch of government
• to confirm
• that this is approved. The the confirmation was the site proximity. So to get them to actually respond was
• a heavy lift in and of itself and took quite a little bit of time for me to get done. I mean, I had to go in person to some of these
• meetings to track down the CEO of the OCM.
• I I mean, really, to Troy, New York. I had to drive to Troy to track him down to talk about this very issue.
• It's only after I tracked him down did we get this unstuck because they didn't grant us a proximity protection. I talked to the CEO. I talked to the OCM attorney who was acting attorney at the time, is not there anymore. And so,
• you know, we
• we when I mean we really wanna be here, we really wanna be here. Absolutely.
I have a question and it may come up later. Sure. So we may as well talk about it now. There is, I believe,
• a proposed law before the state legislature which has not been passed,
• but that would
• include
• proximity issues to two day cares and churches and whatnot as it is schools right now.
• A, do you have a fear of that passing? And b, if it did, would it be retroactive or would you be grandfathered because you were already operating? It's
• I mean, the problem lies within the city and the five boroughs. I mean, if that law were to be passed, more than 80% of the dispensaries in the five boroughs would have to shut down, which is why there was a legislative fix. There shouldn't have been a problem to begin with, but I don't wanna I'm not gonna get into the politics of those CMO laws. That's why you think it won't pass because it affects too much existing business? And I getting anything done, as you know,
• at in government, especially a hot topic in cannabis, the the politicians really don't wanna touch this.
• I think since 2024,
• every year, there's been a proposed law in both the assembly
• and the state senate to change the
• either the dimensions,
• you know, adjacency to preschools,
• or to add the definition for day care to
• say
• school.
• And each time, 2024,
• 2025,
• 2026,
• that legislation has been referred to committee and it's stayed there. It does in committee. Okay. I
• for the clarification, Jeff. Can
you tell us why you wanna be in our community so much, even though we're such a small place?
It's a it's it's a beautiful river town. It reminds me of Tarrytown. Tarrytown,
• I went to Tarrytown in 2020.
• I was doing a different business, and I knew I was gonna wanna get into cannabis. So I bought the building on the street, and it so happened to fall in the zone, and I got into,
• the cannabis industry. But the the town itself
• was so inviting,
• and it was on the water, and it was it was somewhere I didn't really hang out. And now
• it's just somewhere I like to be. So Croton reminds me exactly of Tarrytown.
• So as Mickey was describing earlier, when we were looking for our other search, you kinda, like, look on a map and go, where do we wanna be? And we have to find places that opt in in, and I said, wow. Croton.
• They opted in. I wanna be in Croton. It's on the water. It's 20 away. It's the same vibe,
• and, this is the spot.
• And I didn't look anywhere else.
• as I said earlier,
• we are gonna accept some
• comments from the audience here. And so if someone would like to come up and speak, if you could raise your hand and I'll
• give you a number. So you're number one,
• You're back in the back, number two.
• Also back in the back, number three.
• And across the back, number four.
• Green sweater, number five.
• And
• the lady with right there, six. And this can be 7.
• Okay.
• So if you guys would go back into the audience then and so we can
• and,
• yeah, that would be would be great if you could go ahead and sign in so that we can actually
• put, you know, have this on the record. And
• and then when you do come up, please state your name and your address,
• and then and then you can give us your comments.
• And
• we we do have a house rule, if you will, that we limit these to three minutes. So
• so we'll be kinda tracking that.
• So number one,
• come on up. Thank you.
• have a seat. Oh, thank you. Yeah. My question is If you should sign in, sir, please. Okay. Thank you.
Sir, if you could identify yourself name is Halil Odawash. I live right close to Fire Department, which is right close to the place they wanna open.
• And I have three small kids.
• And I'm wondering how you're gonna prevent people coming to that store, picking up their stuff,
• and
• come to my street and using it?
• And also, how much gonna cost
• to this village to prevent those people
• for the police department
• to enforce the law?
• I mean, is it gonna be fought
• for the village to open this store 4%
• making profit?
• But how much more money we're gonna be spending
• to
• impose the law
• and then pay the police officer
• to,
• you
• know, impose
• illegal use
• to the subject in the village
• or on my street.
• Gonna
• be coming parking right from my house, which is fire department.
• We have a fire department. You cannot park it, but people come park.
• I mean, we're gonna have this type of people, and it's gonna cost the village more than you can make for it.
• than what we're make from this business.
• look,
• you're not allowed to consume
• on-site at all. It's not allowed.
• But cannabis is being consumed here in the village. Okay? Whether it's bought at a store on
• Riverside Avenue or elsewhere,
• and none of our customers are gonna come and smoke
• on your street in public because if we see anybody, our customers leave our store and they're within eye view of us, we're gonna make sure that they're not consuming because they're not allowed to.
• Especially in front of your store. Like, again, people consume now, whether they buy at a legal shop or an illegal shop. To think that cannabis is not here or that a dispensary in town is gonna make more people smoke on your streets, there's there's no
• connection there. I don't know how you jump from, okay, dispensaries here to now being, okay, people are gonna consume on the streets.
• There's just no correlation
• between the two.
• even ostering,
• people buy from the store gate, go to the next street, they park their car to the next half next to the another house.
• They use it. But how you gonna impose those? And
• then to impose those, we have to call the police. Every time you call the police, it's gonna cost us
• money for the village.
• So
if you haven't had that. We haven't had any of those issues whatsoever in Tarrytown. Really, we've had not one complaint. You
• know, again,
• Tarrytown is another river town. It's it's very close to here. It's got a Main Street that is a seems a little bit busier than this downtown Main Street.
• And, again, we've just had no issues because we run
• a very tight
• operation.
• Everybody is well trained, well staffed. We have cameras outside, and we're gonna do our part as a store. And we wanna be, again, a good partner,
• and we wanna be part of the fabric of this community.
• You know? And and so whatever we can do
• to make sure that nobody's impacted
• as a result of our store, we're gonna do. We're gonna host community events. We're gonna host learning environments. We're gonna we're gonna go ahead and move on, Mickey. Yeah. So
• Mickey, maybe you can
• go back now. Sure. And and let's see how this goes, but Steve's suggesting that maybe we hold the questions for the end, and then you can address them in a more less of a back and forth kind of manner,
• which I think is a good idea. Thank you.
• You know, I'll just state a couple things that I think were not brought up. The simple fact is the product that they are selling is at a higher dollar value than anything that was ever sold at that convenience store. I'm guaranteeing the lower dollars
• the lower value of their products is multiples
• of what the highest dollar value was at the drugstore or at the convenience store.
• So no analysis was conducted on the potential for criminality based on the products that they're selling. Easily movable,
• transferable,
• stealable, grabbable.
• They themselves,
• based on their site plans and their main concerns that they brought up tonight, have already addressed that this is actually a security concern in their minds.
• Additional cameras,
• blacked out windows in the front,
• vault in the back to store the product,
• processing of the product in the back from a separate door that is a delivery door only nearest the vault. They know it's a security concern.
• The fact that it's across from a day care raises this.
• In the worst case scenario, let's say there's a robbery gone wrong, what's a clear visible place
• for that robber to go to get some good cover?
• The day care center across the street.
• This was never brought up in your comments or concerns.
• This is definitely a a thing that we should consider as part of this town.
• The other question, why do they want to be here?
• The Blaze.
• Let's Blaze at The Blaze.
• Perfect business model for them.
• It works.
• It practically sells itself. That's why they want to be here,
• to blaze at the blaze.
• And it's only a five minute walk away.
• As you're going to get food before you go into the Blaze, you pick up your pot treats to go to the Blaze. It's really not that hard of a business product,
• and that runs for from August till
• November. That's a good
• Black Friday sale for them.
• That's their that's when they're making money here.
• They don't have that in Tarrytown. And by the way, we're not Tarrytown,
• and we don't want you here.
• Chris Roos, 55 Trewsdale Drive.
• Three things I wanna bring up. One is, you know, I know that that from your point of view and legally, we have to think of we can't
• we can think of this as just another retail location and we can't discriminate against it
• or or you can't discriminate against it.
• But,
• you know, the reality is it's it's they're gonna have these blacked out windows.
• You can't be you're you're legally not allowed on the premises
• if you're under 21 years old.
• It's going to have a different, you know, feel,
• especially at that location in the village.
• As far as I know, the only
• categories of business that have that same type of age restriction are strip clubs and casinos.
• So we're talking about, you know, bringing something very different into the village.
• And, you know, we can actually give
• mayor Q and trustee Simon a little grace here because
• they were at the April 8 board of trustees meeting, there was a discussion about
• the decision to opt
• to to
• not opt out,
• I guess it was. Yeah.
• And
• they actually believed at the time that they voted that on that that
• Harman would be exempt because
• the because of the day care, because of these issues that are being raised.
• They
• and what happened is, according
• to to the discussion,
• trustee Simon could probably could speak to it better. He but
• after the fact, New York State changed
• they they even changed how you measure those distances,
• but they also
• didn't include day cares in in
• that criteria.
• So
• I don't think that the board wanted a dispensary in this location.
• My my last point is is sort of a question
• about process,
• and it has to do with these notification the notification to the municipality
• that the lawyer alluded to earlier.
• You know, I feel like it's not fair for you guys to receive the brunt of this public comment. I think that, you know, there was
• prior to the license even being applied for, at least thirty days before the license was applied for,
• the applicant would have had to notify
• Croton that that they were in the process of this, including specifying their location. And then the the village had thirty days to respond.
• At that point, I I feel like that's when public comment should have been received. And, you know, we as residents have no idea whether our response was submitted, what the content of that response was.
• And
• I feel that we should know that as as part of this process.
• Thank you. Thank you.
• Let me sign in here.
• I think I'd like to focus
• on the suitability of these specific locations since you've already mentioned
• that is obviously contentious.
• Why it's contentious?
• Well, this is a major three way. It's actually the biggest intersection in town.
• It's also a major way to get to the train station and to get back. Right? I walked to the train.
• It's already a difficult walk on that intersection.
• A high demand business like this is gonna import
• not just foot traffic,
• but a lot of cars.
• Anywhere east of us where there's not already dispensary,
• people will come from there. So it's gonna increase
• traffic
• at this critical intersection.
• I think it's gonna make walking to the train much more difficult at peak times.
• What are the times when people
• come back? Peak times that Mickey mentioned. Right?
• Of course, Mickey would tell us that cannabis dispensaries
• probably improve
• intersections.
• Right? But I think we we know that's not the case. This is not like Tarrytown where there are already businesses on that street that people are walking to. There's restaurants, there's bars. This strip is really
• residential in nature and it's a throughway.
• So it's not like you're going out to dinner and then walking down the block. This is a lot of traffic to the train and back,
• and it's gonna increase the congestion
• in the parking situation where we discussed, but it's really about walkability
• and biking. This makes it harder to walk, harder to bike. They've said themselves they have a unique experience. They're drawing people in, not just from Croton, from the streets
• in the vicinity, but from other towns. Right? So this is not, simply
• increasing
• foot traffic.
• This is about bringing a lot more congestion in at a large intersection.
• I think the biggest intersection
• actually in town. So I would be curious
• what the plan is for that specific location. It's really an objection to the location which is ill suited,
• very ill suited for a high demand
• business.
• It's all about supply and demand. There are a lot of coffee shops, a lot of bakeries. There aren't as many dispensaries.
• And if you look east of us, there are not that many. So it's about drawing in cars. Okay? So that's what I wanted to mention. I hope that we can address that with a better location.
• Gun shops, strip clubs, gambling facilities,
• and cannabis dispensaries are all legal.
• But legality does not make them healthy, appropriate, or beneficial for a small family centered village of 8,000 residents.
• When municipalities in New York were given the option under the marijuana regulation and taxation act to opt out of cannabis retail
• and opt in later,
• the Croton Dems chose otherwise.
• Pugh and Simon served in their current roles on the board in 2021
• and voted to opt in immediately
• without a survey,
• without a referendum,
• and without meaningful community input,
• bypassing a far more prudent wait and see approach.
• The 09/20/2021
• public hearing was a hearing to opt out of on-site consumption,
• not cannabis retail.
• Neighboring villages such as Pleasantville, Irvington, Rye Brook, and Larchmont opted out as did Yorktown.
• Equally concerning and why we find ourselves here today,
• Pugh, Simon, and the Croton Dems failed to establish clear zoning protections before opting in.
• At the April 8 meeting, trustee Noctaylor was the only member to raise the need for proactive zoning,
• ensuring future dispensaries are placed in appropriate
• discrete locations
• away from schools, day care centers, and places of worship.
• We should not rely on the Office of Cannabis Management's guidance. We must protect ourselves.
• Storefronts change. They rotate daily. We don't know where the day care is gonna be from one year to the next. Those safeguards need to be put in place, and that's the only way that we protect ourselves as a community, and they failed to do that.
• That absence of planning is evident in the current proposal,
• a dispensary near day care, a music school that serves our youth, and a place of worship at a busy intersection on the Main street.
• This is neither thoughtful
• nor appropriate for a business in this nature in a family heavy traveled area.
• Lot a and Save More haven't hit the scene yet.
• Remind yourselves of the congestion produced during the many months that we host the blaze.
• All of these things need to be taken into consideration.
• This site should not be approved.
• Good governance is not about merely what is legal.
• It's about planning responsibly,
• engaging the community, and protecting the character of our village.
• That's not happening. I
• urge the planning board to deny this proposal and honestly, I feel bad for you guys because they keep going back and forth on what they throw on you and I feel like you're constantly bearing the brunt of things that are very very
• contentious,
• and that's not fair to you.
• But I really do hope that you are able to somehow
• deny this,
• establish some clear zoning regulations,
• seek community input before moving forward.
• Decisions like this should not reflect the values and priorities
• of outside,
• you know, business people who are just looking to make money.
• Honestly, if approved,
• I hope that it's a colossal failure
• and that no dispensary owner ever thinks twice about opening a shop here ever again.
• I find it pretty pathetic to think that a cannabis cons dispensary can survive in this village,
• but that a toy store can't.
• Thank you.
• My name is Drew Gammels. I'm from Young Avenue,
• and I really wanna focus my comment on the site proximity protection.
• I have some major concerns about statements that were made here tonight.
• The statement that the Happy Hearts is private only is incorrect. They offer a universal public pre k program.
• Universal public pre k is regulated by education law.
• I also wanna point out that in February 2026, the governor signed legislation
• to change how the distance requirements are measured, that 500 foot requirement
• from schools.
• Previously,
• they used the definition school grounds,
• which was which is defined by the education law. But when they changed the law in 2026,
• they simply used the word school
• without any definition,
• which creates ambiguity.
• So I have some major concerns about how we can say Happy Hearts is not a school
• when there is no definition for school
• and we have not seen the site proximity protection.
• I would also say that OCM has been all over the place. They you know, regulations came out. They measured distance one way,
• then they changed the their minds. They measured it differently.
• Litigation happened, then the courts had to give advice about how they were going to measure it, and that was in 2025.
• With that advice, day cares were clearly considered part of the school
• definition.
• And then all of that to say that the governor, in order to correct that error, issued revised
• legislation in 2026.
• So I don't really fully trust that OCM was looking at this properly,
• and I would ask this board as
• clarification from OCM about whether this really does meet that 500 foot requirement because it is well within 500 feet. It's actually within 200 feet and so there are some major concerns. So urge the board to ask for clarification
• about the site protection proximity,
• site proximity protection,
• and to, you know, let the public see what that has to say because I do think that OCM got it wrong in this case. Happy Hearts is just too close and those children are just too vulnerable.
• Thank you.
• 80 Young Avenue.
• I have some prepared comments, but also some comments to things I heard this evening. I will keep it under three minutes.
• First of all, thank you very much for allowing us to speak. I know you didn't have to do that, so I appreciate that.
• I'm here tonight to strongly
• urge the board board to deny allowing the marijuana dispensary at this location.
• This site serves as a primary entryway into our village,
• and it sets the tone for our entire community.
• I don't believe this is consistent the character of what a small village like ours should be.
• But more importantly, this location is in very close proximity to the chapel playground
• where young children gather every day to play basketball.
• Since COVID or recent years, whichever
• whatever it's from, I have personally had to either approach or call the police
• for grown men drinking in the chapel. You might not know this, and maybe it doesn't happen every day,
• but more than once is more than is too much for me. One day, we were walking into the 09:15 mass, and there was a guy there by himself drinking beer, and I had to approach him to tell him to get out. Another occasion, you can call the police. I've had to call for men drinking there. My point is
• they can look outside and ask people to move away from their entryway,
• but what's to stop them from having them go to the chapel where there's a bench to sit there and smoke marijuana?
• And their busiest time, as said, is four to seven, which coincides to after school when the kids all go there to play basketball.
• So
• it's not just about legality. It's about judgment and placement and protecting the character and safety of the community.
• So I I do ask you to deny this. And in addition to a couple of things that were said today,
• one, you just glance at the website of the happy hearts. Now that might not be legal, but all over it, it talks about them being a pre k, a school. That's for
• the legal experts to decide what that is.
• But one of your one of the gentlemen here this evening said that they're confident
• that it will not impact
• our community. Those were his words.
• And what if they're wrong?
• You can't put this genie back in the bottle. There what do we do then? And,
• again,
• the parking,
• I think it's
• naive to think that people are gonna walk up from ShopRite
• in the 90 degree humid summers, in the rain, in the snow, when they can park on the street. And being on Yonge Avenue,
• we get more than what the average people get. We get some
• stuff. I'll write you a letter about what happens on our block. Plus, people use it as a cut through to that gentleman's other previous,
• speaker's comments about the traffic.
• People wanna miss the lights. They go through our block, you know,
• way too fast for the kids that are playing in the block. My concern is that's also gonna bring just unsavory
• characters and more cars to our block.
• But I just urge you to reconsider because
• from what I understand, 4% to the county and then we get a little bit, I don't think we should be for for sale. It's just not worth it for the little bit we get. It's not worth it for anything, frankly. Thank you so much.
Am I not understanding? Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought I thought that was You were not I thought we were done too. My mistake. Sorry, sir. You're right now.
• I live at 69 9th Avenue.
• And,
• firstly, I heard from mister Weiss that
• they went to every
• promotional establishment in the village,
• and only one
• was interested in his proposal.
• I should have told you something.
• Right? But
• be that as me.
• One of the big intentions or questions here is about happy hearts.
• And it's been if you look at Happy Hearts, it says educational center.
• And
• what has been said
• is that they're not licensed
• as a pre k
• or they don't have a license. Is anybody here from Happy Hearts? Represent Happy Hearts?
• No? From
• what I heard or from I understand, Happy Hearts
• had the pre k contract
• approved by the Board of Education in 2001,
• and I believe up to 2024.
• So they had to have a license
• in order to be approved by
• civil board.
• Whether they had that license or not right now,
• I don't know. But
• somebody should check into that because what's
• being said
• is they're not licensed.
• They had to have been licensed
• to receive federal funds
• and be approved
• by the school board
• to have pre k
• classes or whatever in in that facility.
• So
• there there are a lot of unanswered questions here and concerns,
• and I don't know if
• this is gonna be voted on tonight.
• And I would
• ask the board
• here
• to postpone
• any decision. This is gonna be voted on tonight.
• Because I've been in this I've been a resident of the village for fifty years.
• There's been a lot of litigation in in in this village
• that the taxpayers had to pay for when
• decisions were made that were challenged.
• So I would ask the board
• to make sure everything
• that's being decided is based on legal facts.
• And if there's questions that needs to be addressed,
• they need to be addressed before this is voted on.
• Thank you.
• Thank you.
We went sorry. We went through and and and asked everybody who wanted to speak. Can I speak?
• I'll let you speak and
• but that's why that's why I went through it before. I have my hand up. I'm sorry. I missed you then. So you can speak and then, Ronnie, if you wanna say something too. Yeah. I'll make it quick.
• Warmbriggs Lane, Cronon, Hudson.
• I've been a resident in this town
• for about fifty three years, so I've seen a lot come and go.
• And
• I don't partake in
• the marijuana
• because of my job.
• But I know more people
• actually, a family member's had cancer and they have to take it. And
• if you ever been in a dispensary,
• they're nicer than doctor's offices.
• Now everyone's worried about them smoking outside.
• Does not happen.
• I've never seen it. I've been in quite a few
• and just to see what they're like.
• So to get some knowledge, so I have something to say.
• And with the traffic, go to DB Mart every day. If there's gonna be less traffic
• right there.
• I personally think from a Quoten resident for fifty three years that this would be a good investment for the Quoten on Hudson.
• It's clean.
• As you know, we're all moving into the future. Things are gonna change. I've seen a lot in the fifty three years.
• So
• I would be proposed for it.
• Thank you. Thank you.
• village resident
• and business owner.
• Just sign in here.
• Home address or business address on the sign in form? Alright.
• So as I said, my name is Riley Moeller.
• My wife and I are raising two kids in the village here,
• and we
• own the local bike shop,
• which is two doors down from
• where the proposed site is
• set to be.
• And I
• think as a as a as a parent,
• you know, you have to think about what's best for your kids and
• how to how to teach them
• sort of how to, you know,
• move through the world and protect
• themselves and
• and
• yeah.
• And
• there's always going to be things that that you don't like or that maybe you don't want them
• to be exposed to or to do too young.
• But I also have, some alcoholism
• in my family, so I probably have a different view of marijuana,
• versus alcohol.
• And I don't know how we sit here as a village
• and,
• I mean, the for god's sake, the the spot that is that it is proposed to go into sells beer.
• There was a comment about people
• drinking alcohol next to the church. Where do you think they got the alcohol from?
• And they sell cigarettes
• and,
• you know, so
• my
• view is that and and right across from Happy Hearts, which does not
• offer universal pre k, and I would know that because my kids are that age.
• There's the hibachi grill, which serves alcohol.
• And and so as a parent and as a resident, I don't know how I sit here and say that
• those type of businesses
• are fine and okay,
• and this type of business isn't.
• And and, you know, sometimes my views as a resident and as a parent are different
• than that as a business owner.
• So I've kind of shared my views as a parent and and a resident, and I think that it's our responsibility to teach our children right from wrong and not to get mixed into the wrong things.
• But again, I don't know how we can have a smoke shop and
• different convenience stores that sell alcohol
• and and liquor stores,
• but not allow this.
• I also just wanted to mention that,
• you know, we are a small business.
• We're going into our fifth year.
• We're we're doing okay now. It was a struggle in the beginning, but we've kind of got over that hump.
• We pay around $25,000
• in sales tax every quarter,
• and we have no dedicated parking.
• And often parking spaces in front of our store
• and the other businesses are open.
• And,
• you know, I know a lot of the businesses on that street are are not here. And and by the way, it is a business district. I know there's a neighborhood behind it,
• and I I,
• you know, I wanna respect those residents as with with my business hat on,
• and I I think I can share some of your sympathies or concerns, but it is a business district. There are other businesses
• on that road,
• and I think that if any of the businesses had an issue with this,
• especially
• the day care, that they would absolutely be here tonight as engaged members of this community.
• And
• yeah. So
• I'm I I welcome the business. I welcome the foot traffic. I think it can be done responsibly.
• I don't think that you see people
• outside on the streets,
• smoking pot,
• and and I I just wanted to express,
• local
• business owner and as well as,
• you know, several building lots and property in the village.
• Originally, I was
• in charge when I was when I was
• applying to put the
• building up at the old Gulf Station
• where Big By Susan is. And
• the board was so on top of the gateway into Croton,
• etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
• To me, this type of business is not it's not a beautiful gateway into Croton seeing a dispensary.
• I think there are probably much better spots to put something like this.
• You know, I'm I'm pro business,
• but I also am worried about,
• you know, what does it do for the price prices of homes in the village.
• I certainly don't think it's gonna help the prices of homes.
• I just think that we should really look at it a little closer,
• maybe find a a better location,
• and
• maybe go about it that way. Thank you. Thanks.
• It's a shame that this, subject has to be brought before the planning board to begin with.
• If the members of the village board had done their job four years ago, they would have turned down
• marijuana
• distribution
• centers
• in the village of Croton as inappropriate. But they wanted to be part
• of a cutting edge
• philosophy in New York and be number one.
• And even when the pot shop was proposed for ShopRite,
• once people started talking about what it would look like, what it would be like,
• what the customers would look like,
• they started backing away from it, but they were already committed.
• They could have sat back as somebody pointed and watched
• what happened elsewhere
• instead of jumping in.
• Right? Instead of opting in.
• They could have opted out and come in later. But it's a crappy idea to begin with in a village of 8,300 people. A terrible idea.
• And unfortunately,
• this board
• gets to carry the garbage for the village board.
• And the two people that that
• voted for that, that are still on the village board, should be held accountable for that,
• and a lot of other bad decisions.
• As you know,
• that area of Harmon is a highly trafficked area.
• The one pizza restaurant
• attracts a huge amount of crowds
• that may require two traffic lights once that drugstore is put in there. You have a terrible traffic problem.
• And then,
• with outsiders buying pot,
• they would have to drive up from shop right area and take a left hand turn. The left hand turn at that traffic light
• sucks big time. Very dangerous. And then when you drive through that area, that business area at nighttime
• or as the light dims,
• I have I have seen people almost hit people repeatedly
• because of the foot traffic to people crossing back and forth. And then you add a pot shop. Let me tell you what. The management of the pot industry by the state of New York has been one of the worst implementations
• of any state in The United States,
• and the fact that a lousy legislature, which we have the worst,
• would tie the hands
• of the government that's closest to the people just makes me think a lot less of that organization.
• So I'm sorry you have to do this, but you've done this before. They have dumped crap in your lap, and you've said, you know what? We have to work within certain guidelines, but we don't like this. And we're gonna tell you, if we could get out of it, we had the authority, we would. And because the ultimate zoning board authority in the in this village is the village board, And perhaps you ought to attach your opinions to that and kick it back to the morons that started this to begin with. Thank you.
I don't know if you can respond to some of those issues that maybe Hard hard to follow. Questions.
• That Not just the pants concern.
• I I respect and appreciate hearing from,
• some of the concerns and then and some of, the people in support, which,
• you know, is is how things are. Like, it's a political issue. And so you're gonna get people who have opinions on things. But four years ago, your village board decided to allow cannabis
• under the laws of the state of New York and the laws of the village of Croton.
• We are allowed to open our shop here.
• As far as addressing some individual comments, there were four that I sort of can touch on that really
• were something that I could respond to. As far as the process goes and the stamp, we followed the state process. We submitted what's called the municipal notification form
• to the village. We actually had to get it stamped, get a copy of it, file that form
• with the office of cannabis management. I went through that process before.
• In order for them to even consider whether or not they would grant
• site proximity protection,
• again,
• I heard issues with respect to
• Happy Hearts
• and getting confirmation from OCM. Again, we did that. Not only did we do that, and there's a pin on what's called the proximity map that shows we've been approved, we actually provided written
• correspondence
• from the office of cannabis management to the village. They were copied directly on the email.
• I heard comments about the crosswalk and the parking again. We want we did go over this, but, again, we are a less intense use that we're proposing that is currently there. In other words, there's more people, more vehicles
• that are that are existing today than there will be if this board approves us and and we open up.
• And then,
• again, we're a lot of folks here are concerned about the day care, but nobody from the day care
• is here on behalf of the day care.
• And so that goes to speak to that issue in and of itself. That day care has been sold.
• Now Excuse Please don't speak from the audience.
• With
• with that said,
• we are incredibly
• excited
• at this opportunity to become a partner here with the village, and that is exactly what we are. We you share in our revenue. There is no other business in the world or at least this country outside of state
• licensed cannabis where you get extra
• revenue, gambling maybe casinos,
• than here from cannabis. And it's it's it's a it's a large sum of money. And
• we are going to give back to this community. We're gonna be wonderful partners here. Like I said, we've got a proven track record of giving back to the community.
• If you speak with anybody in Tarrytown,
• and I only use that as a benchmark for you to get some information. We are a stellar partner with them, and we contribute. There have been no issues. If you talk to the mayor over there, the chief of police, they will both
• strongly support,
• this operation.
• from Tarrytown this morning,
• Effie, and she
• did echo those symptoms. Yes. And councilman Mitchell and mayor mayor mayor Brown It was actually pretty interesting to hear from her because she
• she said
• essentially what you said that they were
• that you're a good partner and that you were good for the village in her opinion, and I was kinda surprised and didn't
expect it, but that's what I got. And and look, on on a on the on the cannabis issue in general here, like, we've,
• as a state,
• been licensed for now, what, four, five years. You have not seen like you said, let's test it out. There's no issues. There's no
• bad actors coming into town. There's no robberies
• stick ups hold ups.
• People do not smoke outside the stores. It's just not a thing. Just like people don't except for, the example before about people taking beer from the mart and go drinking it at the church. Like, that doesn't happen with cannabis. Like, we haven't experienced it. And so,
• again, there's liquor and cigarettes being sold in this location right now. We're just gonna sell cannabis. Both of those products or all three are for sale to those 21.
• Right? And so, with that, we respectfully request that this board approve us
• tonight.
thoughts or questions? I was just going say just on the happy hearts and whether it's considered preschool or a daycare.
• My understanding is it's licensed through the office of family services
• and not through the department of state department of education. And as a result, it's not considered preschool.
• And therefore, that's how you got your approval.
The proximity didn't come into play in that case. That's accurate. Accurate. And I think we were given that opinion by the village attorney as well. So Mhmm. It's not like we're
• just taking your word for it. You know, we had
• pre meetings here to find
• out where we stood with that and all of those issues.
• Well, I mean, while I think that
• and I that's the reason I asked about the other locations is because I personally think that
• there probably is a better location. I mean, I thought that down by ShopRite,
Yeah. Sorry. I'm I'm just saying we saw an application a couple of years ago that was down
• next to Fronto Pizza, and I thought, you know, they had some good reasons why that would be a good location.
• Maybe better location, but I understand that
• that you have looked at alternate locations, and you do have a a a viable one here relative to the law.
• And the law is kinda what this board is held to.
• Property owners have rights and
• businesses
• need to go and
• and it is a retail business. Everything you've said has been echoed by
• the village attorneys
• and
• and our consultants.
• So, I mean, I can't find a
• reason why we shouldn't
move ahead with this and approve it, to be honest with you. I'd just like to revisit the hours. I promise we'd have I think the hours is a good thing to revisit. Okay. If we can have a discussion about that, briefly before we Yeah. Go further on. Can I just share a little information before Yeah? We move on to because, we we did get,
• prior to this meeting, and there were the fear of the
• increase in crime was mentioned,
• more than once. So I actually made a call yesterday
• to,
• the police department in Ossing
• because I know that there are two,
• dispensaries there in Ossining that have opened recently within the last year. And I spoke to a lieutenant Mayorano there and asked
• whether there has been any increase in crime
• and Ossining or anything around the area of the dispensaries, and he said absolutely not.
• None at all. No.
• So for the for the for the neighbor who was concerned about the
• about the
• the,
• possible effects on his block in his neighborhood. I just wanted to offer that piece of information.
• I'd like to suggest
• that
• you agree to have the hours be
• 10AM to 8PM
• on your store. For one thing, you know, people raise the issue about the Blaze, and I think it'll help even with that because you won't get quite as much people coming in,
• you know, ravel rousing later in the evening and kinda cutting things off at 08:00.
• I think would be good for traffic, good for a quieter neighborhood,
• and not having I think 09:30 is just far too late for that to be open. Don't know liquor stores that are open that late.
• Well, except for Louie in Uptown, but that's a unique situation.
• I would like to ask for those hours.
• revise that from, let's say, 09:30 to to or nine to nine? Nine to nine. Nine to nine, I think, would would be
People people come in and shop. Yeah. A lot of people do A lot of people shop in the morning. They do say And they wouldn't shop between ten and It's really funny. I I'm in the store, like I said, seven days a week.
• We open at 09:30.
• It's 09:30 to 09:30. People appreciate us being open early. I would I would like to be accommodate
• you by opening up nine in the morning
• to nine at night and just shave the half hour.
• People that do come in the morning do
• find it.
I'd like you to be opening well past whatever rush hour there is down to the train station in the morning. That I would be better for us. So 09:30 to 09:30. You had already proposed 09:30 so I don't I'd rather you not go to nine to open. You've already proposed 09:30.
• I'm suggesting ten so you're well past rush hour and
• I think that 08:00 is a reasonable time.
• I'm familiar with dispensaries.
• See when they operate. I'm sure I'm not going be hurting your business to ask you to not be open from eight to 09:30 at night. I think it's a reasonable
• request. I think you're I
still speaking. I'm sorry. I apologize. Yeah. I think it's a reasonable request to limit the hours that you're gonna be open. I think you'll do fine
• from,
• ten to eight. I don't think it'll be harming your business whatsoever.
• specifically. Again, the current use, people go there for coffee and breakfast, and more people are gonna go and stop at
• the deli right now in the morning that are gonna come into our shop. Restricting our hours is gonna impact our revenue. It is an incredibly
• large investment on the front end of time and money. And for us to get our hours cut because there's an because of a feeling. If there's evidence here, if we have problems, we'll come back to you. And that can be a condition of approval, like but to ask us to open later without giving us the shot to show you that there's gonna be no impact is is a little difficult for us to swallow.
• And so we're happy to work with you and sort of, you know, have a back and forth and a discussion because, again, we don't want there to be issues, but we also don't want our hands tied with respect to a busy part of the day where we can we can we can make money. I'd like to ask my colleagues what they think about the hours. I'd just ask the attorney what what, leeway does the planning board have in in governing the hours of of a cannabis shop?
Well, I I would have to look at the the code, but I know the proposal is for, the application is for 09:30 to 09:30.
• And I believe that that is the hours, your business hours are for your retail
• in that district. I'm not a 100% sure. I'd have to I don't know the 30. Believe that they need at least seventy hours per week
• So we have to give them at least seventy hours for, like,
Which is ten hours a day. That's my understanding. Right? Hours per week. 70 per week is ten hours a day, not Yeah. Twelve hours. Because that's the minimum from the office of cannabis management, right, is what the rug you're quoting. Again, like, we we are making an enormous investment in this community to become a good partner. You share in our revenues.
• If if what I would suggest is if it became a problem,
• we will work with you. I'm I like And I'm putting it on the record. We can make a conditional approval. Okay.
I think that it should open with the hours that we think is best for the community. I'm soliciting my colleagues for input on what they think reasonable hours
for a store of this nature should be. Yeah. And I'd also add to that that it doesn't
• work like that. People don't come back to the planning board more than once after things have opened to to
• to adjust.
Right? So this is our shot right now. Exactly. I I mean, I think to some extent, you need a basis for the change of hours or or restriction of the hours. You have a deli that I don't know what the hours of the existing
• convenience store
I'm partially basing it on what I see liquor stores doing. I see a dispensary is very much like a liquor store. And to the best of my knowledge, the liquor stores in town don't open till 10AM.
• And to my best of my knowledge, at least the Van Wick and
• Depray,
• I think somebody help me out. Think they're closed by
• nine ish.
Yeah. I think if we I mean, I think if we did 09:30 to nine, I wouldn't have a problem with that.
• Eva?
• I'm more
• in line, Steve, with what you're thinking than all the way than all the way to nine. Yeah. I I
• What's the next step? I mean, in Tarrytown,
• you you've been here for a couple years. You you're growing.
• What do you do to what are you selling now you didn't sell five years ago? I mean, have you So we've only been opening Tarrytown for,
almost a year now. May 1 will be a year. A year. The products that we're gonna sell in this store are gonna be almost identical to the products that are sold in Tarrytown.
do a different type of business? No. Why no. No. I'm gonna continue this business in this location. We're spending a lot of time, effort, and energy. We've been through this process now with this village for well over a year. We still have to next after this, if we get approved tonight, we get our building permits issued, when the village gets us. We mobilize the construction team. We build.
• We get the c o. We get the,
• permit to operate from o c m, and and then we would we would open our doors.
We did 09:30 to 08:30? Uh-huh. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. You know what's that? That's that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. I mean, what do you think? 09:30?
• certainly gets us past rush hour. If traffic
• is a concern and somehow parking at that hour.
• You know, 9PM is is not
• unusual in this town.
• A closing time of 9PM
• is is kind of standard with what other businesses
• of this nature
• would operate at. So I'm I'm flexible between, you know, a 09:30 start and
• a 9PM close.
• But that's just that's just where I'm.
• I I think we have to take into account
• what the liquor stores are doing, what other similar shops are doing, and that create some special circumstances
here. Right. That's why I'm suggesting a ten m. Opening. Don't know what the restrictions are in your code on liquor stores. Are there restrictions?
• I I don't think
• think I'd
• want to take this back and advise.
• I don't have an answer for you right now on this.
• And we don't know. And it it, you know, the the applicant's
• request is the is the request of the basis for restricting the hours would have to be based on
• parking
• and and
• traffic and time place manner, not the nature. I don't think the nature of the retail is
• a factor
• here. I don't think it can be legitimately
Mean, nobody's 09:30 is the ask. 09:30 is what the business says. That I think that the morning time absolutely
• 09:30, in my opinion.
• And
• like I said, I mean, if we were 08:30 or nine in the evening, I I would be okay with either of those.
• But,
• you know, I I I do think that others other stores, liquor stores are
You guys go in to do nine is 09:30? Nine 09:30 to nine is perfect. We would definitely be happy, and and we could get past this.
• What
do you guys think? That's acceptable. Okay. I mean, based on what the council has just told us, there's
• I mean, with for us to
• eight eight versus 08:30 versus nine versus 09:30, there's not gonna be traffic or parking
• Not in the considerations in the evening. Right.
• Right.
• CEO for the building.
• I know it's I'm talking
• about it too much,
• but
• maybe you wanna check on that really before it gets too far,
• before you go too far, and also
• the roof.
• This building was added a second floor a while back,
• and you could stay down the street and look up. See, it's hanging over
• the other roof, the lower building.
• I don't know if that's a problem. I don't don't know if it's just a don't worry about it.
• But before you get too far, I would check on that to find out you're not gonna get stuck with a a problem.
So I do wanna come back to I think that John made a made a good point earlier with respect to the the,
• two way street and the divider in the middle and that it's
• it's easy
• I mean, I've come out there and had to, like, wait a moment to, you know, to to figure out where I gotta go. And if people are if this is a business that's gonna be bringing more people
• from out of town, they're not gonna be so familiar with place. So if they if
• We can If we could have a condition about that being put the new signage
• right there
• being part of the exit, I think that that could be helpful for safety. We can request a signage plan, Karen. Yeah. That's, you know, that's a village
strip of property. So they would be DPW or whomever would be responsible for adding that additional signage. Yeah. But we can, you know, add that in as something
• we'd like to see Yeah. As part of this.
• And on that similar note, kind of a different topic,
• we'd love for you guys to work with the police department.
• Find a way to,
• you know, establish a relationship with them and,
• I think you've done that in Tarrytown,
• but what kind of things could you do along those lines? So in Tarrytown, we contribute to,
• the dinner, we
• sponsored a table at the Terry it was at the the Westchester County chief of police,
• gala, which, Barbalet is the president of, so we got a table there.
• You know, whatever whatever we can do, whether it's PBA sponsorship in Jersey, I think that's what we're going for. Think we're going for more of
• that is is
• we're going for more of a relationship that's gonna benefit the village and not the police department specifically.
• I think it's more about how can the how can your relationship with the police department
• benefit the village in terms of what happens in this location in a positive way? Yeah. We were working on so much of vows. Well, I'm on the golf tournament.
• do quite often meet with the lieutenant and talk to the chief of police, and I am friendly with a lot of the officers that do walk up and down Main Street. So, we we do have communication two, three times a week.
• Like Mickey did mention earlier, if they did want some access to cameras or if that was need be, Tarrytown doesn't. But if they wanted to, we were willing to let them. But, just my communication and
• being there and being part of the community just keeps them aware of what's going on, and they reach out and say whatever they need from me, I'm there. Whatever I need from them,
• they're there. So it's, it's an open line of communication.
• I
also think as a like, one of these conditions here, we should put in something about just making sure the the parking
• and the site plan is marked appropriately.
• Stripping. Even though you're doing the inside of the I think the striping and signage and and making the handicap spot
• viable
• is so that it meets the site plan requirements that we're just sort of never implemented
• properly
• is is something that we should have as a condition. That makes a lot of sense.
sort of sign that says customer parking only. Yeah. Absolutely. Great. And if you could come back, I think, with
• when when when the signage
• when you do come back with signage, I think that having
• laid out some sort of a grand opening plan that that you could communicate to us would be would be helpful so that we kinda know what we're in for and what to Absolutely. Correct. Yeah.
• Anything else? Nope. Anybody wanna make a motion on that? I'll make a motion.
• from retail to a cannabis dispensary for
• best dispensary near me at 370 South Riverside Avenue
• with the conditions
• relating to
• the grand opening plan
• with
• the hours that we were
• discussing
• of 09:30AM
• to 9PM
• with proper
• a real effort to coordinate
• with the police in an ongoing fashion as far as making everything secure and traffic flow be, adequate.
• Encouraging the village to upgrade the striping and the signage,
• and that they control
• along with a parking plan for your store for the, customer parking only signage that you will also submit when you come back to us with a signage that you'll submit, to the VEB.
• I think that's it. Do I leave anything out? So
• the state
• them getting their license from the state? Well, they can't open without that. So Do we need to add anything? I guess, I asked our attorney about that if that's, whether we need any sort of language along those lines.
Do we need to add language about them getting their full license approval into what we're doing right now? It sounds
• their licenses
• is running on a parallel track. They're going to get their license regardless of what happens here.
• You could put it in as a condition of opening that they have their license. That makes perfect sense. Alright. Well, let's add the condition that they're fully licensed by the state cannabis commission,
prior to opening. Although, I don't see how they can open without it. But Right. Yeah.
• I I mean, it makes sense that you would want to put that in as, by the way, we you need your license,
but, obviously, you need your license. I think you guys should clarify the parking situation.
• And if he's gonna pay for the spots or whatnot, where he's gonna pay for them, that should be a part of the conditions. Good idea, Vin. But so noted. Can we add that, please? Thank you. So what and the plan would be then,
• a permit for two spaces.
We asked for more, but we were told we can get two. I was told the cost was $40 a year for the permit. And so we're gonna get two at the parking
• lot that's right on the same street on the West Side Of Benedict. Right. And then we'll get
• spots at the train station monthly. One closer. He said there was Oh, the one. But I don't I don't know if they have monthly do they have monthly spots available on South Riverside? Are they monthly? So they're I think that they're they're I think they're through the town Okay. Similar to the ones that you would get
We'll get those. If if they're available, we'll get those. I asked about them today, and I think I I think my understanding of my conversation was they were hourly parking. But if they're available
to us by the permit Susan does that already Okay. For some of their employees. So that's why we know that that can be done. Then we'll do that. I would say that, you know, if you could secure
• what you need down there for your employee use,
• it's probably another two or three or something like But
• don't park on-site,
• that they're parking at one of these other off-site parking spots.
• Jeff, you were trying to I was gonna say the exact same thing. Okay. Yeah. So
• works. That works. With that said, I think I've covered it. Alright.
• Okay. John?
• Alright. All in favor?
Alright. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you.
• we kind of
• kicked it around a little bit earlier, and it was this referral,
• from the
• what are these guys called?
• Referral from the village, board of trustees to review
• this local law number seven,
• the EAF and CAF to amend
• these, property maintenance and zoning of the village,
• to revise government posted signs. So
• I think Jeff spent some time with this. I spent a little bit of time with this. And I mean
• of this is that the genesis of this of
• this long
people guess these guys to If you guys can take it out out out of the room, please.
you can you take the coffee? We're we're meeting still. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. We're still having a meeting. Thanks. My apologies. No worries.
• enforcement issues we had with our previous signage law.
• And, essentially, what happened is
• within and I'll have the village attorney correct me if I'm wrong.
• Within in or Vince, within all the categories of signs,
• they've all been reduced. They've all been collapsed. There's There's not not a a a certain set of rules for election signs or garage sale signs
• or,
• you know, have a nice day signs or whatever. They're all considered noncommercial.
• So now all these signs are noncommercial,
• and the content
• that that is within that sign
• is not anything that's that can be considered.
• Whatever is said on that sign, it's considered a a a noncommercial sign if it's not in in support of a business.
• So that is one way around
• simplifying the the signage law.
• As a result, from what I could tell, whereas in the past, we would have individual definitions for, say, an election sign. And they had to be down ten days after election. Had to take them out. It had to be gone. Now they're
• considered
• noncommercial signs.
• And as long as they're in
• good condition,
• they can remain up.
• So
• that that struck me as kind of odd. But
• it was it was our way of getting away from
• judging
• what's what is on the content the content of of the sign and creating separate rules for individual
• signs,
• but rather grouping them as either commercial or noncommercial.
• And, Jeanette, you can help me with that. Is that correct? Yep. That's an accurate description. The content based,
• provisions are stripped out,
• and the idea is to have,
• commercial based signs are you can regulate more rigorously than
• noncommercial signs, so that's why there's a category of commercial signs.
• But anything that doesn't fall into the category of of
• commercial,
• you're basically
• the ideas in in the draft laws to
• set forth setbacks and size,
• and
• some good comments came in from from the the planning consultants
• that
• you should consider
• as to beefing up some of the provisions and and providing
• more detailed
• provisions if if you wish on
• proportionality
• as to the size of a wall that a sign might be on, that kind of thing. It it doesn't have some of that right now,
• But the idea is to strictly limit it to
• does it move? How big is it? How far off the street is it? Is it gonna impede traffic?
And not what it says. And not what it says. So there's Definitions and stuff to clarify
• what's a sign versus a banner versus a poll,
• propose that.
• I I
• had a brief conversation with Bill here before we started, and
• the comments that Valerie made, I think, were quite spot on.
• There's certainly room, I think, for you can always improve something.
• But I think the planners need to put their heads together, planning board, the planners put their heads together and come up with,
• sizes and things like that. Right now, it's very rough cut in a way in that it just proposes an outside limit of size.
• And I think it could be
• improved
• tweaked a bit quite a bit if if you wish to. I think it would be helpful to have models
• of of other villages that
• Right. Your firm has found
• again, you know, clarifying
• the procedures, clarifying, making easily
• readable,
you know, examples from other codes, things like that. Yeah. There's room for for work on the on the law for sure. Yeah. And I think that the planning board's input would be greatly appreciated by the village boards and by the attorneys who worked on this at at the outset and by the village manager.
• So it it's not something you're gonna be able to, I don't think
• Deal with today. Deal
• finish today. Let's put it that way. So if
• beside your comments some Yeah. Examples that you can share with
us and then maybe we can Yeah. Again, we've table this kinda outlined the the kind of the greatest hits of what we saw that could be improved. Yeah. And so we'd be happy to kind of, you know, meet again, guide the team that.
• And come to the table, you know, maybe after our first discussion and then coming to table with some examples
• and alternatives even, you know, things like that. So
And and we'd be happy to help. Happy to to work with the planners. I know Steve had Develop that. Thoughts on this too. Well, I had three things I would have brought up just for this language,
• but one question that gets triggered listening to you all tonight is,
• have we eliminated,
• for the time being, with this document, requirements that for
• election signs and tag sales
• they no longer have a time limit that they have to come down by? There's a category of temporary signs.
The thinking being things that are only up for a short period of time Right. It could be thirty days. It's it's written for forty five at at Brian Healy's recommendation.
I mean, did I miss that? Is that still in there? No. It's the way it works is that you
• the
• building
• department for Oh god. No. For a permit. Right? So you have to have a category of temporary signs.
• It's defined in here.
• So anything temporary
• does not need a permit if it's temporary. If it stays up past that temporary period But who's responsible to take it down? Like,
• does it The property owner it would have to end up being an enforcement matter. If the property owner leaves it up for forty six days, if the law winds up being passed at forty five days and the sign is still up on the forty sixth day and the neighbor says the sign has been up forty six days,
• if you don't have a permit process
• basically blessing it or or or saying when the sign went down went in,
• you you know, how are you gonna know when it when it's sold? Is what we're gonna discuss
• I would think the board of trustees is responsible for enforcement
• and and should be working with the building inspector and those We're writing a new code about signage. It seems to me that it's part of this. It's all wrapped up together. Right. It's all related.
• Obviously,
• you don't wanna write a sign law that's unenforceable,
• but you also don't wanna sign law that is too difficult to that that you could enforce, but you'd have to have an army of inspectors. Right? I agree.
We don't have that. No. Not even close. Nobody has that. Alright. So then the for details,
• since Rob gave me the opportunity,
• it mentions on page five,
• the village engineer shall maintain a book of photographs and drawings representing the types and styles of signs preferred in the village in order to assist in expediting the application process.
• Is this something,
• Bill is it?
• Bill is that something you're to bring Do to the
• number
• seven
• under C under c application process. That's
• there must be shook his head. We don't have that now. As far as I know, I don't think I Well, we're citing it as if we do. So Yeah. Well, I mean, if you wanna take it out, we can take it out. It's I mean,
• it's up to you if you guys want. I don't even know what it would be. I guess I just take pictures of existing signs and say, this is what it is. I'm sure. And and we recommend it too that that be discussed and teased out and what that's supposed to be. Okay. Just caught my attention because I used to work in an agents ad agency. I've done signage. Yeah. There are standards sometimes for companies. You can only have the logo be a certain way and a certain size and a certain font. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't know that the village wants to get that specific, although some general guidelines of signage There might have been a one time. Maybe there was a book at one time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There might have been a book. It would it might be helpful if we had a graphic artist do some very basic
• guidelines
• for people that are doing signs in town.
• Very basic. You know, very almost vague guidelines, but so that it's not an anything goes situation. That's just my suggestion. And that might be something Bill has an appropriate example of. Exactly. Yeah. We That's why I'm asking. We've seen that. And it could be kind of
showing three d's if you need to do show three d things. If you need to show sizes and, you know, borders and things like that. You know? Yeah. So it's it take it's the whole gamut, but you can really
• Okay. Put other other codes so we could present those. The other two things on page
• under illumination illumination number number two. Two,
• all light sources used for illuminating sign shall be shielded and shall not be a source of glare. I I added the words or bleed. It's not just about the glare in the sign, but it's the light spreading out and, you know, landing other places where it doesn't belong. We're we're going toward a dark skies code and this is something that is part of that effort. So I'm just mentioning that. We are on to debate it tonight. And
• then this goes back to what we just talked about on seven,
• page seven at the very top. You know, all signs shall be kept in good repair and safe, neat, and clean condition.
• So I wrote what's the enforcement mechanism for that.
• I mean, everybody here knows. I have a pet peeve. The the historic Hudson sign that you encounter when you enter town has been rusting on the edges for, I swear to god, at least ten years. It looks terrible. And I know that they recover it for the blaze every year, and that's the excuse I'm always told, but then they remove the blaze cover, and then we're looking at a white rusted edged sign again.
• So what's the enforcement mechanism for getting historic Hudson to properly paint that sign so it looks nice in our gateway district as we enter Croton and cross the Croton River? It's that kind of thing. So I know we're gonna review this code and go through it. But, again, what's the enforcement mechanism
• that stands behind these rules that actually makes something happening happen without hiring an army of people? Right. Right. Right. I think that's great. I think it'd be coming from my department one way or another. Sorry. Yeah. Right. Right.
Got an army. Got an army. A little army. Right. It's all that fair. But it may be cross referencing something else in the code about enforcement. I got I You know? It I'm sorry. Sorry. Again, this is just off top of my head, but it might be just cross referencing other
• pieces of the code
• that relate to reinforcement.
• You know? As in section whatever enforcement of building codes,
maintenance and upkeep of sign shall be you know? Well, there must be fine there must be a a section in the code somewhere. I'm not familiar with I'm pretty sure that there is. I just can't With the sign. Just so it's not just so it's not unclear
that someone say, well, it's the village board's responsibility to walk around town or things like that. Like, so, you know, we try to Yeah. Fairly fairly My department. You know, on the website on the village website, if you have to hunt for it a little bit, but under the DPW section,
• there is a page that you can go on to alert them to a gaping pothole or, you know, a thick a light fixture that's at that type of thing. I've used it twice, and within several days, that item was fixed. They're they are marvelous. Yeah. Yeah. But why couldn't we have something like that for a sign that's falling down or a sign that's rusting or, you know Yeah. I guess Something to entertain. You can email me. I think you can contact
• Okay.
• draft law, as as we have in front of us, seems
• like a very early draft. Yeah.
• The comments
• from Bill's company
• that his colleague Valerie put together are are good, and there's a lot of good suggestions in there. So to adding Steve's comments to what we have in in that document
• and
• asking for a revision
• and then bringing it back to us where it's a little bit closer to a
• little more polished
might be the way to proceed with that. One way to do it is to give it to you as a Word document, and then you can
• put comments and edits into the word document. I think after,
draft law is, takes into account the comments from Steve and Bill or Bill's company. And I just wanna say early on, we said that we kinda get the team back together
• and roll up our sleeves a little bit more about the pieces that we were talking about and making recommendations on
and yeah. And working on And roll it into Right. Right. Janette's new draft. Yep. Mhmm. We're gonna throw it back at you. I'll work with you for sure.
• tonight is the minutes from March 24. Yep.
• Not surprising.
• On page one,
• second paragraph,
• you just there's a typo. It's temple Israel of northern.
• There's an n missing on Northern Westchester.
• Do you see that? Great. Thanks. That's all I had.
Alright. Somebody wanna make a motion on the minutes? To approve the minutes. Alright. Eastwood.
• All in favor? Aye. Aye. Alright.
• I think we're adjourned. Alright.
• Thank you, guys. Thank you. Yes. Thank you.