all right are we ready to begin Madam clerk all right all right uh I call toward the meeting of the mayor and Council B River Edge um May 30th 2024 regular meeting at the River Edge library and virtually on zoom in a moment I ask in a moment I ask you to stand and remember in your prayers all of our loved ones who have gone before us those who are dear to us um especially our moms and dads as we um as we try to make them proud each and every day let turn to the flag read salute I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all okay so we have statement of compliance with the open public meeting act this meeting complies with the open public meeting act by notification on January 11th 2024 of this location date and time to the Down News and the record and by posting the same on the municipal bulled board and the burough website and following notice of the same with the clerk Madam clerk roll call please [Music] here here here here all right so uh first item for us to uh take care of is approval of the minutes item five could in a moment could I have a motion from any member of council and a second from another to approve the minutes of the mayor and Council regular meeting of April 8th 2024 and approve the meeting of the M the minutes of the mayor and Council regular meeting and closed session May 13 2024 moved second um if you need to abstain from one of the others uh you can do that all those in favor please say I I I need to abstain from the May 13th session and do you have an i for the April 8 I do I and I need to make abstain for April 8th and you have an I from I for May 13th very good um so um we're going to um I'm just going to uh break up the order a little bit we do have some presentations but I think what'll we'll do is without objection uh move appointments and Personnel changes swear people in and then we'll go back to presentations is there any objection hearing none it is so approved um so we're moving jumping to item number eight appointment and Personnel changes could I have a motion in second to approve the appointment uh pretty dalla for a one-year term to expire 12 3124 Teresa Esposito and Lori esposo to a two-year term to expire 12 3125 and Michelle Kitt to a three-year term to expire 12 3126 to the shade tree advisory committee May 30th 2024 can I also have approval to um approve the appointment of Mayor Thomas papalo councilman glass and we need to change this to councilwoman uh Lisa monan Cohen to the affordable housing ad hoc committee effective May 30th 2024 so that one would be moved as amended and finally approve the resignation of Cecilia um I arola uh police dispatcher effective May 31st 2024 so move second it's been moved in second and all in favor please say I I Michelle can we swear you in [Music] hold the Bible so if you could stand right there and actually she's going to do yeah either there okay so thank you for volunteering I I again so many ways you're a volunteering family I really appreciate it uh let's make sure that I'm not blocking you good okay Michelle uh would you please repeat after me I state your name I Michelle kidi do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and the constitution of the state of New Jersey and that I and that I will bear true faith will be true faith and Allegiance and allegiance to the same to the same and to the government established and to the government established in the united states in the United States and in this state in this state under the authority of the people under the authority of the people I st your name I Michelle K do solemnly swear do solemnly swear that I will Faithfully that I will faithfully impartially impartially and justly and justly perform all the duties perform all the duties as a member of as a member of the shade tree advisory committee the shade tree advisory committee to the best of my ability to the best of my ability so help me God so help me go thank you Michelle oh Michelle I need you to sign my bad I got it I'm the witness where should we go okay uh we're going to uh begin the presentations in a minute um Council McMan I think you're going to recuse yourself with this portion thank you um okay so um we have two presentation uh and I don't know how we decided the order I guess is how they came in very good uh the presentations will be 15 minutes each with five minutes question and answers by the council if the council needs a little bit more time we can always grant them more and uh it will be first Sweet Spot River Edge LLC and Then followed by neighborhood greens um could I have the representatives for Sweet Spot River Edge LLC please come up you'll need to state your name your address and if you could your role in um I I believe the company and um for all of you and um you and your time will begin after I recognize you but uh uh if you could introduce for the record for the clerk uh each of you state your name address and your role surely good evening Mr Mayor members of the council my name is Matthew Gilson from the law firm of Murphy Schiller wils at 24 commer Street in Newark I'm the attorney for Sweet Spot River hlc here with us tonight uh they can introduce themselves but also while we're not be presenting our landlord is here Mr White and Brian Inon DOA from NE engineering who performed a traffic study and parking analysis will be available for questions with the council but since that's more of a land use issue we're not feeling to call him as a witness very good just if you could State again um you said uh who will be on Zoom oh nobody's on Zoom you said there was one other person landlord and and Brian at the door he's here there he is Brian okay and he did the traffic study okay and then my name is Benjamin herbs I'm the chief Business Development officer at Sweet Spot Blake H I'm the Chief Operating Officer for sweet spot and my name's Ivan tuon I'm a New Jersey New York W attorney and I'm General okay Ian I got you but could you state your name Blake sir Blake yes sir thank you do you mind if I use your first names very all right um so we're not going to be absolutely rigid about the 15 but we do expect it to be 15 and if you go a little bit over that's fine but not a lot understood so I'm just going to introduce for about a minute and then I'm GNA let B in U okay Blake talk but just for we've all received our packets we're the contract tenant of 744 East located in the Cannabis overlay Zone we have Frontage on Route four Ingress and egress we're in the possession of a conditional classified license we're ready to convert that license as soon as the council if you are to look favorably Upon Our application we have our land use application ready to file we have our traffic study and parking study done and it is our hope that if you if we are successful tonight that we will be able to open by the end of the year we're currently operating in Six States including New Jersey we have over $24 million in funding and we would love to be a part of your community and with that I'll turn it over to Ben for his portion of the presentation thank you m good evening Council again my name is Ben herps and I'm the chief Business Development officer here at sweetspot Sweet spot's been in the Cannabis industry for six years now we have retail stores in Six States Rhode Island Maryland Maine New Jersey Connecticut and Vermont along with one cultivation and Manufacturing facility in Rhode Island last year alone we served over 300,000 cannabis transactions Nationwide we've earned 4.9 out of five stars in every oper operational store across the country both in Google and read maps we have a sterling relationship with the Cannabis regulators and the municipalities we serve we've even won two awards from municipalities we operate in exitor Rhode Island and Norwich Connecticut we've created over 130 jobs each with full benefits and Equity incentive packages we are one of few companies in the Cannabis industry to ever partner with federally funded universities we have internship programs we sit on sustainability boards and we're in the process of setting up a partnership with Rowan in South Jersey for where we're building our cultivation facility a quick note on the brand I'd like to mention many cannabis companies focus on serving the Cannabis enthusiasts at the expense of the infrequent consumer with less familiar familiarity in the market we are not that kind of company we pride ourselves on serving customers who are interested in cannabis but what may want a milder more personalized experience we stock a wide array of lower potency products most other brands ignore we offer intro quizzes starter kits with very small doses so customers can find the product that works for their needs our focuses to serve customers less typically associated with the cannabis use our median customer is female and over the age of 42 years old our customers don't want to get high they want to get well in New Jersey we came in first place in the 2019 medical dispensary application out of 200 applicants out of the 30 uh license Award winners by the state we were the first to open our doors showing that we have the knowhow and experience to get dispensaries open quickly without disruption to the local community we operate a successful hybrid dispensary in VOR Vorhees New Jersey that is profitable and has a strong track record of safe operation and compliance we know the industry but most importantly we know the industry here in New Jersey the market the local consumer and the New Jersey regulatory environment we will put our experience to work to replicate the success of our Bor heast location here in River Edge this will allow River Edge to capitalize on the job creation and tax revenue with the confidence that their chosen operator has a proven track record in the state and will succeed long term we are completely operationally prepared to launch this facility in River we've secured over $24 million to date to build a highquality cannabis business and are financially prepared to execute the proposed plan we've completed a site analysis and have finalized our building permit plans for this facility and we are ready to execute immediately upon Town approval we've developed and continuously update our standard operating procedures that are compliant with regulations in each state and municipality we have an industry best security plan and worker safety plan and we have a detailed Good Neighbor policy to ensure that we are receptive to any concerns from the members of the community before we go into detail about this location and how we would like to partner with River Edge Lake who's our um Chief Operating Officer and director of Safety and Security is going to do a quick walk through of our this is our location in Vorhees so he's going to do a walk through of the location how we plan to replicate it here in River Ed okay thank you may pepo members of the board my name is bil Kasa I'm the Chief Operating Officer for sweetbot Brands overall I'm accountable for all retail safety security and construction operations within our company my background um a 17-year military veteran with the US Marine Corps and army during that time I served as an embassy guard overseas from about 08 to 11 worked in Iraq Italy Afghanistan Pakistan India and many European countries I supported the Obama Administration securing hotels abroad I've taken a lot of those Lessons Learned and skills I've adapted there and applied them to our security here in uh the Cannabis sector additionally I served as a combat medic doing uh missions out in Haiti um supporting the Baltimore riots and most recently the co missions in Rhode Island where I was personally accountable for all the pp acquisition or requisition and disperss throughout the state and support of the state's Co Mission as I'm sure you all are aware those were crazy times for us um and lastly I served as an intelligence officer doing physical security for all the Rhode Island Army National Guard physical assets that we have in place writing security plans implementing those policies and procedures um additionally I'm personally passionate about local government I serve on my own community's planning board proudly and I try to implement efficiencies where possible and get perspective from this size of the table is as you can see we've done this quite a bit um what separates us from other companies is Ben talked about us having this Fund in having 130 employees it wasn't always like that seven years ago it was Ben and I and our other partners who are up till 4:00 a.m. building our first gr Road Island trying to make this happen not coming for money is a difficult task with um you know using our own hands and maxing out our credit cards but we made it work and we brought it from four of us to 130 people we've done it successfully without any regulatory violations any secur any major security concerns and never wants an issue of diversion of cannabis product nor complaint of odor we maintain an active um strong Good Neighbor policy so my objective today is to talk to you about what makes us a good operator because it's important you select someone that's good for the community that's not only going to generate revenue for the community which is important but provide medicine provide access for individuals who want to um consume adult use or recreational but do it safely respect the neighbors respect the community and as our engineer can attest ensure that we don't have a negative impact on the traffic in the surrounding area um before I go into this are there any questions or did you want to hold questions we're going to hold questions until the presentations are done all right so Ben's going to show you a video if you pause here this is our bhe New Jersey location we have tenants such as FedEx that we share locations with and we've never had an issue um from here we have a demise and wall going down the middle a lot of questions will come up like like what about security and odor how do we mitigate that we treat those demise and walls with wire security mesh and then we have um OSB plywood and then we have our drywall from a security standpoint behind that we also have spray foam insulation and then for our HVAC units if we do have rooftop units we seal those units treat those with UV and carbon filtration to emit odor we've been very successful I invite any of you to visit our store in bores where it will attest to my conts as continues a video you're going to see the individual going to reception or this is I apologize so this is our store you can kind of see what the vibe is if you pause right here our store is meant to be opening and welcome cannabis is new to your community as many other communities and it's being destigmatized so as you can see with our layout we're trying to create an environment where people feel comfortable coming in as a veteran as a February I left the military right so while we were run this business the past 17 years no drugs for their skill no cannabis barely drank alcohol but I know surprising as a marine but it's the truth um got out in February and you know having PTSD been to war cannabis has literally changed my life in three months my wife has noticed a difference the way I I'm an amazing father but my interactions with my kids have changed so I can attest to like how great cannabis is and what it can do for individuals like myself but there's a lot of people that don't know about this that either have the stigma of it and been scared of it or just you know did it back in the 70s and are like oh I don't know if I'm going to do this again but when they come to our store like Ben said we walk them into it we take time to educate we still maintain a 4minute transaction time but we allocate time for people like me to get 10 minutes to sit down and learn what cannabis can do for them what we find out is that when you put down the Cannabis or you put down the glass of wine and pick up cannabis at night your next day is a lot better so going back to the video I digress you'll see the checkin at checkin it's a secure location where and we will confirm their age and identification with a valid ID if we pause here inside you'll notice a lot of education and opportunities this is where customers can freely without pressure shop for product and then before they're approached by a patient counselor any live products such as cannabis flow if we pause here is secured in a glass case lock that is the only live cannabis that's on the floor because a lot of consumers 50% of them still consume cannabis flour and it's very important them to see the quality of that flour additionally you'll see our archways where we display our Edibles our ensures sorry about that so our cannabis flowers secured in a um locked display case and the Arches if we those are all empty packages none of those packages are full of cannabis that's just for the consumer to explore the options what that does is our goal from a regulatory standpoint an operator standpoint is to um mitigate any type of diversion of cannabis our point is we pause here once your order is placed and you know what you want you're like all right this is what I want I'd like to get this tincture the patient counsel will spend time with you walking through what you need to do and while they're doing that they'll send the order back to our inventory room our inventory room is a secure location where they can package a product and make sure you're getting the right product without any pressure from the sales rep on the floor all our products secured in the bolt packaged here and then pass through a secure narcotic uh pass through container once that's received on the other end that product is verified with the customer or patient that they have the appropriate product is this yours is this your name everything's checked off to make sure that they're getting the right product to go home with and then the transaction is completed this on average only takes four minutes if you do an online order two minutes and that average still allocates time that we spend with customers and patients that want the education once they leave they'll never consume on premises that's strictly enforced we actively Patrol for that and then this goes into security and safety so as you can see we have every angle of this store covered we use access control with RFID cards and if we pause here all our product is stored in a DEA rated bolt for schedule on drugs we take the maximum precautions we don't expect nor to have any break-ins but we're always prepared last thing we want to do is put product down the streets that shouldn't be there so we utilize this bolt which is manufactured here in New Jersey and then will be assembled on site the idea is to give you a visual of some of the security devices we have in place and how the stores laid out panic bindes in case there is an emergency which we've never had to use to date so in conclusion our operations are safe secure they benefit the community not only pH but the access to either medicine or products that can be a positive alternative for current uses like such as out I got with that I'll hand it off to Ben for him to complete and I'll just kind of wrap it up here because I know we might be going to close to our time but um so just to uh thank you Blake for that um so we have a contingent lease at 75 root4 that we can commence construction immediately this location's in the Cannabis overlay Zone and meets all the requirements from the bird ordinance our detailed construction budget is finalized the funds are secured and we believe we could apply for certificate of occupancy within four months of site plan approval we have a conditional license from the state we can expedite the final process from the state side our proposed facility is a long route for as part of the due diligence as Matt's mentioned we've hired neglia Brian from neglia who can answer any questions regarding traffic the facility itself has 24 reserved parking spaces based on ordinance 24-4 which requires one parking space for every 200 square feet of net retail area and one parking space for each employee which our Max would be 12 um this location more than meets the basic parking requirements which would be 19 based on that um breakdown in addition to that the shopping center has 39 extra parking spots in an overage lot our lease will allow us to use that shared lot for all of our employee parking that means that all 24 dedicated parking spots will be for customers our average transaction time as Blake said with over 990,000 transactions in 2023 in our board he store was 2 minutes for pre-orders and 4 minutes and 19 seconds for inore purchases we feel very confident that this facility will allow ease of access for customers and not cause any traffic congestions or parking issues we've also met with the chief of police on May 14th and we've agreed to work with the police department to hire two off-duty officers if possible to help alleviate any concerns when we first open and lastly I just want to talk about the benefits of the town because that's really the most important thing here uh based on our projected revenues we project after one full year of operations River Edge will will receive over a quarter million dollars in tax revenue in addition to the tax revenue we plan to annually donate a portion of our profits to Our Community Fund that can be used to support current Riveredge needs the Community Fund will be compromised of employees and local community Comm leaders to help Sweet Spot allocate These funds to the right organization the fund represents a steadfast commitment by sweet spot to integrate fully as part of the local business community and give back to the community where we intend to grow and Thrive for years to come in anticipation of approval we spent time talking to community members and attending Council meetings and to understand their current needs based on these interactions we understand that the River Edge Public Library are in need of funds we would be happy to utilize our Community Fund to support the library or whatever other interest of public concern the burrow might advise and we would be happy to work with the council to ensure that the funds support the greatest needs in the community we are excited about the prospects of opening our newest dispensary location here in rber Edge we spent a lot of time energy to ensure that this business will provide ease of access for our customers and a positive benefit to River Edge while not disrupting Town activities that's it for us if you have any questions we'd be happy to answer anything you might have and uh thank you great um council president thank you that was very thorough I just have two questions uh when you mean uh hybrid facility what what does that exactly mean so we originally won when when the state first started allowing this it was Medical Only we won our first license in 2019 and that was a medical dispensary since then the state went adult use and they allow medical dispensaries to do medical and hybrid so our location in Vorhees is called the hybrid facility because it both serves medical patients and adult use this location would be only adult use but because our background is so extensive in the medical side we will be able to educate our cons uh our customers with that same education even though we won't be able to apply the medical product I have a followup moment absolutely okay so I understand you met with the chief of police on May 14th and the uh concern of the parking spot I mean we leave here we know the Saturdays are crazy on Route four uh because of the mall traffic um how how how will that work I mean there is always a a concern there on on the flow of traffic yeah absolutely I mean we we could bring in Brian here who's the professional I mean I could answer it we're obviously we're going to use the police off duty police office to help alleviate those traffic concerns but Ryan is truly the expert so we'll let him answer anything I mean Brian would you state your full name and address ranola and the spelling the last name is i n t i n d OA I'm a principal of neglia in group and I'm service with Traffic Engineers you can give neia as your business address but you just need to give an address unless 34 Park Avenue okay goad so um hearing your concerned council president is that U you know how does it work on rout four retail use right um my recollection that this was a um a travel agency at one point I actually forgot I'm sorry I didn't ask you could you please State your credentials for the record uh active uh licensed professional engineer in the state of New Jersey and uh focusing on minable scale traffic reports and um traffic signals and been accepted by mayor and councils and boards on too many occasions but we'll say we're in the about 600s or so as an expert absolutely I know I've known Mr for a long time which is a good thing and so uh traffic right move four uh this particular site if I were to build a site from the ground up right uh and the overlay Zone recognizes that that this is where it should be this use and I say that because uh it is at the it is on the uh the roof for Frontage they're all right ends and right outs the existing site has a circulation pattern that takes you around back through the central aisle to get back out so that clockwise circulation pattern is what I would look to do for this shoes on the back side it's basically separated by a moat or Co Po's Brook so it is you know for to for this shes from a traffic perspective it's it's nicely situated um and what we did uh we did traffic counts we ran the levels of service uh you know as a typical traffic engineer represent the planning board and we're also we also submitted it to the NJ doot for a letter of no interest to see if the traffic is significant enough to trigger a new uh access permit which is what we'd have to do we've submitted that to the dot uh the traffic volumes that the site would generate with a differential between the retail use and the proposed cannabis use is not significant enough to trigger a new permit um right now uh Delo Pell is the contractor for NJ do they are doing some improvements to the uh um Main Street ramp right now they're redoing the uh uh the radius for the ramp they poured to one side today they're going to P the other side put a new handicap ramp in so all the things that I want as a traffic engineer this site provides parking is going to be managed um uh uh by sweet spot with you know we typically present for Canabis use that the first year or so will'll be have um um off-duty police officers to help manage it um because it's novel use it's just like when they opened up the sonics on room 17 a couple years ago it was Mayhem we've gotten past that in the cannabis use because I believe new jerseyy is up to about 110 retail uses right now so so it's becoming not so much the novelty but you know you want this to open smoothly and we've done the traffic counts we believe the access works the access circulation around the back uh works well there's a center aisle for uh exiting so for all the things that I would look at right in right out it's basically pre-engineered for this site it's just a resumption of um the uh Travel Agency use for the can use of 1,800 foot on a Saturday peak hour which is everyone's interest in buron County it's about 50 trips uh during the Saturday peak hour based on uh Institute of Transportation Engineers data as well as um uh NJ do has a classification for this use as well so all said the driveways will work with a reasonable level service C we don't see an issue with that so um and it's just for well know there uh it will be managed by off Foster and as that uh Market is then found and the saturation is met that'll taper off but it's up to you know the the burrow to see if they're comfortable with that and to be monitored ultimately by uh whatever the traffic sing or the traffic Lieutenant to see if he's satisfied so I think that's that's where we're at and I'll just add as as Brian mentioned let's year or two ago when this first was adult use yeah there would be a lot more issues but because it's become more regular and there's obviously a lot of stores in the surrounding areas it won't create that type of issue that you know you might be concerned about just like opening a shopping center to really building habit for the customers as they come in so once we get by that two months they understand this Clockwork method that we've established to help mitigate any congestion and push the traffic out to the right way and because we have such great numbers in terms of getting people in and out while still educating them there won't cause a buildup getting into the store of doing the transaction it kind of keeps a nice steady flow thank you problem councilwoman conseller she stole one of my questions thank you I know I have another one if you I give it to you um just to confirm none of the products are going to be on the floor itself right they're going to be in the back and the B correct or in lock behind the seal thing that you can't get behind okay and I think in your presentation not here live but um in the packet you you sent us you have projections for the next five years do you think those are viable considering that there is a huge going to be a huge influx of um cannabis uh retailers coming in do you think that's a I mean we are projecting based upon who has opted in in the surrounding areas I can't project if any of these other places to do that and obviously that will play a part right but we're basically saying these towns that our projections are based upon a 20-minute drive drive time and the towns that have already have it okay and we take those numbers and that's basically how we come up to it I was going to say in some towns are only medical like there are some dispensaries that will never be allowed to convert and so we do a lot of analysis based on traffic flow see good I mean this these numbers I mean we are very we are very conservative with our numbers we don't like to infl Big promises and then not come through our everything that we put we believe is going to happen and it's our intentions to meet all of them okay um well we can come back here councilman Benson thank you mayor thank you thank you for your presentation absolutely um I come from a City Bank background so I'm just curious are any people in your stores paid through any kind of financial goals like they have to sell a certain amount of product things like that so I can answer that we do not have that compensation level um our staff are trying to educate customers and guide them to the right purchases and all of our staff has full medical benefits W yeah we're wer the only groups that we do 100% P employer PID medical benefits um this is lucrative industry and we pass that down within 4 so we pay well above the medium wage we offer um fully paid for medical and dental benefits with vision as well as acity packages so most individuals in management positions have Equity Equity packages some even in marketing and lower level positions receive them so our employees you know from a standpoint we don't pressure them to make sale goals but we try to create a culture that's very collaborative and Equitable for everyone okay thank you and uh I heard you mention that you're G to annually donate to a community fund M um is there like a number associated with that how would you figure out so we're going to do it um we're going to create this Community Fund that's going to be from people on our firm and as like we'd like to work with you guys it's going to be a certain amount of basis points of our net pro profits okay thank you councilman glass L yeah thank you for your service your record is amazing um serving a COO and all you got going on um what if how many other stores are you guys working on and how do you manage your workload and what if you find that you're getting spread too thin do you have what what kind of Staff do you have on seems like seems like it's a lot it is I know when you're in a growth mode yeah especially coo there's a lot seems like there's a lot of Demands on you you're coo and it sounds like you're managing security um you have a lot of responsibility can you explain a little bit how you manage that and what what resources you have under you part of the equation for me is are you guys doing this in other communities at the same time any other stores do you have in it's a great question I get that from my wife every Friday night 7M but no um in the early days you know I started this seven years ago with the black beard um so as you can see I I did I did Bear those burdens in the early days but as a leader as an officer in the military I know the importance of leadership decentralized command and delegation so I've embraced that um from a retail operation standpoint we have a vice president retail operations who's here in New Jersey full-time we have a director of retail operations that support him who's here in New Jersey my leadership philosophy if you're managing four plus 4 to 7 plus you need to bring on someone to help you manage that that's my philosophy and I stuck to that and it's been successful on construction we have an associate project manager who start out and a cultivation team worked out to construction we also have a season um PMP project manager that comes from 15 years of construction project management I'll be um handing off the security and safety portion of my job to a director of security and safety another fellow Marine veteran who will be joining us at the end of the year so although I do have a lot going on we do delegate um my priorities are on the community governance the community interactions and then of course our metrics are we building out fast enough and very seasoned in construction I know how to move things along we're able to we never have high lead times on product on uh equipment so I'm a facilitator I don't have people that work for me I work for them they come to me they let me know if they need to do their job I prioritize and I execute I've been very successful so how many how many stores do you have the pipeline right um right now under construction we have one under construction one that just wrapped up construction and then we would love to move forward with this so while this is under construction we'll probably have one other store okay two more quick questions um we were asking about traffic and those related concerns first Saturday how many people I'll feel that one you I mean our models we've stress test them were very good um you can't anticipate with the first Saturday is I think the novelty is starting to wear off here in New Jersey so it could be high it could be low we'll use our uh take precautions such as having traffic control and ensuring that we have individuals in clocking lot to start getting people accustom so you answer your question like how many people we can do you know 50 transactions or 200 transactions no matter what we do were prepared to handle it so it's really a hard question we've seen States in where we've done High Revenue numbers and it took us a year to ramp up to that like it this doesn't you don't turn it on and you're successful overnight those days in cannabis are over you have to put the time and energy to build that consumer base so I don't imagine the first few Saturdays and first few months being chaotic and as we wait U ramp up to full capacity that just allows our team to be more efficient and more prepared and allows the customers to develop that custom to how do we move throughout I knew I wasn't going to get a number I anyway um last question what kind of um structure do you envision I don't know what kind of commitment I can ask for but um are there any plans in the near future or in the foreseeable future of franchise so will you maintain that management oh this location always under your control yes we will not franch this out we we and we plan to hold on to this for as long as possible and then David just to add to what in terms of how also Blake delegates the seven years that they've been operating uh a lot of the stores regulate based on Sops or standard operating procedures which are creatur of regulations so Blake and the rest of our team consistently redo the Sops and drill them into the is the GM so if anything happens The Playbook is there you have to follow it to a t because compliance is really what brings down operators is a strong track record that we have according to the Sops that we drafted thank you councilwoman canel um yes um did you need another license to open for this premises a state license yes and we have one already already Yes okay so we would just let's just say we win we would take that resolution of support bring that to the state and that's how you get final approval but we already have a conditional license and we've actually you know it's called a conditional license but the condition is that we get the resol so once you have S so conditional license designed for in order for you to secure site control and and get resolution support in the town before you like fully commit to an annual license which is the next step uh the path next this resolution support in hand to finalize the conversion application and submit it and it's just hurry up and wait to be 3 months perc approval the the average right now is like three three to four months from getting your foot in the door um so that's really the timeline and while we're waiting and then it would overlap or vience un okay and um just a couple your online sales how are how are those so those are so online sales have been making up a larger portion because of that too minute times so right now we're seeing 20 40% in some stores 20 on a low rent and that keeps increasing so we tend to push online sales one it just it allows customers that know what they want to get in and out it decompresses the staff and allows us to spend more time on okay and um you said you building a cultivation does that mean you're going to make like products yourself because right now get exactly right because you can't you know so that's where our cultivation facility is going to be South Jersey obviously us being a vertical business will allow us to be able to insulate our prices not affected by the marketplace which will be passed down to the customers themselves so it's a net benefit for everybody because we just like everything of our operations we make sure that we're the most efficient in how we operate and that goes with the grow too and we can grow you know a pound of cannabis at a very nice price and we will be passing on those discounts to the customers of R that's it Dr pres yeah I I just have a followup question and again Ben thank you for your service as well that was uh a very impressive record um can you talk to us about uh the um background check of the employees how many employees do we expect to have in this location and how does that work for the perspective of the staff training that you mention in the for the community so the max employees facilitation wouldn't exceed 20 to 24 um that's for covering seven days of a seven days a week for background checks our management staff want to go back checks by the company that's Ure one they can handle you know they're going to be handling money they're going to be managing people and responsible for enforcing regulations really we're just looking for that someone doesn't have any blar um convictions that would rate to like you know bad character so immoral convictions or um Bary or things like that as far as the employees they will undergo a state required inspection background check every state has different regulations New Jersey requires every employee that sells or works for cannabis company to it's called parted employee you have a card that is associated with you that gets approved and issued by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission so every employee will go through a state required check with that when we hire people we do ask for a general background trck because New Jersey has certain things called disqualifying convictions that if you have them you cannot be employed in me industry so to answer your question there is more to it than just walking on the street and getting paid hourly you have to have a card in order to be the C has to be displayed if it doesn't that viation so those back to and I just want to add one thing Blake mentioned 24 uh employees it's going to be TW a Max 12 per uh like shift so you know it's not it's not we're having 24 people it's just that we need to have multiple shifts based upon the hours and we would like to be operate seven days a week fulltime employees part time so we do a AFF to work as well so that's you know it's a we we find that people Joy having three-day weekends or that extra day off so you know we have 24 employees at most 12 per shift and that allows for us to have councilman Benson thank you mayor um I I maybe I I need a lot of education on this but I know that there's another license for you to be able to deliver for bus do you have any there is there is a separate delivery license that you can get that a standalone ever with a retail license comes the right to deliver do you plan to do that like will you be will there be a truck with your name going on ground the neighborhood or anything even if we were right now we have no intentions of participating delivery we have done delivery in other markets and it's just not it's not favorable um not because of any issues with it it's just not a lot of people use it we wouldn't do right now we have no intention of doing delivery if we work we never do deliver over where it's like hey cannabis you're not allowed state regulations be a secure vehicle and there's a you can't advertise anything so and I moov diplomats through war zone I move diplomats through pan so even if if we took it on I'm very confident that we can do a safe things to sh it thank you okay we're kind of stretching the time but if there is a pertinent question is there pertinent question okay where are you guys based uh I'm based in New York and we were all living in Rhode Island when we first started this business and we standing up so new jerseyy becoming our home base um our VP of retail just moved to northern Jersey our director of retail moved there Jersey so our goal is to be Jersey home based right now we're all kind of all over and one other question related real quick so we have all this control related to Security in the facility are there security risk associated with deliveries and if so how would that be manag not security risk associated with deliveries um cannabis has shown increase security posture and decrease crime throughout the area um the security risk you do have AR with deliveries there more of internal threat theft which we mitigate through positive culture training and checks and balances and then your um unsophisticated smashing grabs those are your two biggest threats and be taking countless measures to mitigate those we good all right um the council may or may not um decide on um a letter of what's it called support at the end of the uh public meeting we will be having a close session where we'll discuss this when we come out the council may or may not decide at that time to do a letter of support uh you are welcome to stay we will of course have other business after the second presentation of course we'll allow them uh you know the opportunity for a full question answer like we did you um we're going to uh move to the next presentation thank you thank you so much I appreciate it but I have neighborhood greens come up give us their name and address and you of course may give a business address you don't necessarily have to give a home address and if you're going to have any experts experts that of course need to give their qualifications sorry good thank you we give them to 20 hopefully they'll stick more than 15 okay to say our names uh yes if you could uh and your role and an address which may be your business address uh my name is veronic Bine I'm the CEO and our physics address is for West alate ad Anglewood New Jersey I'm G Singh Co I'm lybrand I am CEO of the neighborhood greens Foundation then we have two Representatives that are joining us virtually U they can uh address their needs I'm Sebastian Nassau I'm a consultant to Neighborhood greens I am Jessica Kaiser I am also a consultant to Neighborhood greens okay as I mentioned to the previous presentation we hopefully we can keep it to 15 but we're not going to hold you to that but we don't want you to take advantage of that either then we'll go into questions and answers we'll give each council member two or three and then we'll uh we'll uh we'll end that move on with other business thank you for coming thank you for having us uh you know I think first off we just want to thank and Council for uh know giving us the opportunity to engage this process and present today um so you know we are uh we are neighborhood greens um neighborhood greens represents a collection of individuals who believe in the idea of responsible Enterprise where it's not just about Investors and owners but equally about employees in the community at large we believe that this perspective is especially important in canabas Industry as we are dealing with a powerful substance where a consumer understanding is limited around potency dosing and the effects of different consumption methods leaving the door wide open for potential adverse reactions and also abuse so when these negative experiences happen who's left to deal with it uh it's not private Enterprise it's families and communities it's Community infrastructure it's Community Resources it's volunteer EMS it's all those direct costs are are all unb unbudgeted and are all unbudgeted by the community however what makes us neighborhood greens different is that we have thought deeply about this issue and we have already brought Solutions and Community Partners to the table before we even become operational so what we're proposing here today is a Forward Thinking dispensary that operates at a high level and proactively solves for potential for any potential negative externalities to the community which is to be accomplished by a separate not for-profit wing of neighborhood greens which lives an active voice to Residents and brings together leadership from Bergen County's major Civic organizations such as greater Bergen Community Action Group and Children's Aid and Family Services that's responsible for a lot of the drug education programming throughout the county in Burton County uh to that end we'd like to quickly share a little bit about our team and operations before we get into our community initiatives and the anticipated economic impact in River Edge I am going to keep this bit quick to be mindful of time but uh this is uh gig as mentioned uh he's our chief operating officer my name is ronic you know our track record is in scaling highly regulated and highly rated multi-state clinical outpatient centers serving mental health and addiction patients what has made us effective is our ability to build operations that meet individuals where they are at while also building larger systems of support by plugging into and enhancing local infrastructure um and who is our general manager she um she's a plant expert uh she has a background in ethnobotany and cannabis medical research she ran the top rated cannabis dispensary in Oregon which is a very mature market for several years and her operations were renowned for their customer experience and their ability to manage high throughput in one of the physically smallest dispensaries in the state she's also the individual who created the position of Director of Education and Training to ensure that patients were having informed consumption experiences also with us are Sebastian and Jessica um you know between them they've uh you know assisted 150 dispensaries opening up across 20 different states and even 10 in New Jersey uh and they'll be working with us from the compliance perspective before doors open and thereafter so this is just some of the experience what be bringing to River Edge if given the opportunity to operate here what I want to underline here is that we have collectively done this before we know how to execute very high level while meeting the needs of the community in a prudent and thoughtful manner now in the interest of time I'm quickly going to run through some of the pillars uh that make up our operating strategy uh so feel free to you know if you want more detail ask me more during the Q&A uh employee well-being uh our employees set the tone for every customer interaction the better trained our employees are the better prepared they are to assist customers in navigating the complexities of cannabis from that perspective we intend to invest heavily in our employees our employees will go through a robust training program with continuing education opportunities with local colleges but also in terms of clinical research that's coming out as uh cannabis becomes more clinically researched uh we pledge to promote within whenever possible and on top of competitive wages our employees will participate in profit sharing so that they can enjoy some of the upside of the business uh as well in addition to that we intend to hire as according to our Workforce Development plan over 40% of our staff from River Edge to maximize the local impact to the locality uh wherever possible uh cine education um you know this slide is really a conversation around retailing Canabis through a harm reduction approach and as you know today most dispensaries Market their different strains as indicia sativa or some hybrid combination of the two now historically Inda and sativa plants each correspond to a very specific chemical effect but since there has been so much cross-pollination in the development of new drains the underlying chemical effect has changed so if customers do not really know what they're purchasing how can we expect them expect them to develop a responsible relationship with the plant so we need to change this model and at neighborhood greens we intend to provide evidence-based customer education so that customers can cultivate greater agency in the purchasing process and have informed experiences with safer outcomes uh for me this is a bit personal my father has Ms uh he has you know he digs like a th000 milligrams of G Venton every night um and I think about what I would want his experience to be to ensure that he's receiving the care that he needs and then thinking about that for more projected lens the rest of the committee and other individuals who are dealing with medical needs um next SL so uh and then our third pillar is Healthcare Outreach uh basically many medical providers have been unable to cut through the noise around cannabis and feel uninformed over cannabis's clinical efficacy so we will seek to solve for this information Gap by working with Healthcare systems and providers we have already developed a relationship with Bergen ebridge Medical Center and other systems as such as Anglewood Health to explore what the integration of canvas would look like when treating uh conditions or disease states such as uh pain uh for pain management you've heard a brief overview of our organization's tenants from ronic I'd like to now discuss specifically about the dispensary and its operations starting with the floor plan our vision is to build a model that emphasizes meeting customers where they are while creating transactional flows that maximize efficiencies our high-end personalized retail experience prioritizes alleviating traffic concerns our planning approach has focused on two key aspects security and flow we are keenly aware about our need to minimize congestion we've been strategic about creating a hybrid floor plan primarily we're building opportunities for Expediting throughput which minimize is vehicle traffic and consumer traffic secondarily we're building a concierge environment than Apple Store experience where clients are directed and engaged proactively through this we're attracting clientele that will rise to the level of their environments we're educating our consumers who as having great experience learning and engaging with our Benders will become repeat customers they will likely have the confidence to know what they want for their next purchase and even move towards pre-ordering further reducing congestion and expanding on those traffic flows a more informed consumer results in an increase of purchasing efficiency and desire making the process quicker while increasing Revenue with the limited time we have I'll move quickly through the floor plan but again happy to answer specific questions um during Q&A important to note here the version that's displayed on the screen is redacted for security purposes um the deck that you guys have the council uh has more detailed Insight on on the locations of the restricted area additionally we have not had access to the specified real estate our team has gathered Dimensions virtually and engag with security contractors uh to build the initial version here as you can see immediately as you enter the lot you're greeted by traffic control guards and exterior premise guards um as soon as you walk in you are greeted by an ID verification guard and receptionist immediately we start the flow of the um consumer volume people that have already had pickup orders registered and are showing their Badges and IDs QR codes with their timestamped uh approval to come and enter the store will be entered to one entrance to maximize flows there while others that need consultations need education need that one-on-one experience or have yet to order will go through a waiting area in the waiting area we do have an educational resource center or counter than Genius Bar and an Apple store this is to allow for that one-on-one personal engagement for further informed consumption again we're trying to build a relationship here with the product with the Cannabis rather than someone coming in just to go out for a weekend and get high in the waiting area those kiosks and butt tenders that are actively attending um customers there will engage the customers to begin the ordering process so they're not further delaying or congesting the actual sales score if there is no weight and they are ready to order immediately they can go directly into the order Kiosk for folks that that need further assistance and further guidance we have created consultation rooms or they can engage with our butt tenders we want to be proactive in creating Swift and safe operations we will further enhance our strategy and build an efficient system upon access to the real estate and in conjunction with subject matter experts we all have to go through that same process we all have to go and get our security plans approved we all have to be abiding by guidelines through the ncrc so we know we will begin and be thorough in that process and ensure we get adherence to all regulatory uh measures with the experience of attending previous Council meetings and engaging with Community stakeholders we have continued to hear concerns of safety working in other harm reduction organizations I've personally experienced working with communities in sensitive and highly regulated Industries and ensuring there's a Safety and Security plans implemented and aligned with local police departments we get it fortunately New Jersey CRC the burrow and the police department will all be involved in setting Safety and Security standards that we must comply with if we don't we can't operate and if we can't operate well that's bad for business we have already begun the process of identifying security directors with law enforcement backgrounds and valuable experience overseeing implementing and executing security plans and procedures in dispensary environments the security director will routinely audit and update upate the security systems and ensure they keep up with best practices the director will also manage security guards that will complement the off-duty police officers and all systems will be monitored By An approved third party license vendor at all times and be fully available for the police department the systems will also be routinely audited to ensure compliance and proactively mitigate any concerns along with the security director we have a compliance director in our team with experience across many licensed establishments and in maintaining a culture of compliance for dispensaries Veronica and I have both been in highly regulated Industries including substance abuse treatment facilities and have routinely worked with state and federal agencies we know the importance of compliance and how much it how much scrutin is involved in adhering to standards and keeping up with best practices being in these positions before we always strive to go above and beyond there should be no question or confusion in our adherence to Safety and Security standards our dispens should be a place known for its excellence in providing a secure environment a place our customers can feel comfortable coming to and a business the community does not have to worry about but rather can be proud of we will continue to attend burrow meetings and have an open door to for the community for any Safety and Security concerns while connecting with Chief Walker we heard his primary concern about ensuring proper and efficient traffic flow we have identified Traffic Engineers who will be contracted to support in building a model that minimizes congestion and creates most effective flow we will be collaborating with the landowner sheep Walker team to make sure all key stakeholders are involved in this planning process in collaboration with the landowner we are willing to make the Investments needed to improve the lighting signage and enhance the entrance and exit to the property to further minimize congestion we will Implement three different stages that promote pre-ordering anytime users access the website they will be prompted to initiate a pre-order that Mark that that markets a quick and streamlined pickup process all pickups will be timestamped based on availability allowing those customers to enter the dispensary only during their allotted time this further improves flow and gives our team an understanding of expected customer volume we will promote ordering in Waiting areas with kiosks and Bud tenders that will actively engage with customers and build their orders finally with approvals from the buau and in collaboration with the landowner and the police department we will Implement a c side pickup area this will significantly improve the traffic pattern and further increase customer throughput the land owner owns the adjacent properties so working with him will be beneficial for the overall retail experience in the area additionally we want to set standards and expectations around our model which will discourage loitering and other disruptive behavior to that extent we will Implement a Good Neighbor policy for our team and our customers it's important to ensure that all who are engaged with neighborhood greens do so in a respectful and considerate way our dispensaries environment will demand all customers to act to the standard commensurate expected from the community as a result we will be strictly enforcing our Good Neighbor policy which would allow for suspension of customers from future sales at The Establishment our community efforts don't stop just at implementing policies we must be active participants in the social prbg of the neighborhood we operate in to that extent we believe we have an obligation to increase cannabis related education spreading awareness and solving for the information gap for this new industry will have immense value in creating informed customers parents will be empowered to connect with their children in conversations around drug education building tailored programming and collateral to support agencies will further disseminate information across various groups and create more Vigilant and engage Community deterring abuse and maximizing responsible consumption we have had the privilege of working with key organizations and have evidence in implementing our ideals we've co-hosted and led events in collaboration with groups like New Jersey Poison Control Bergen County prevention Coalition and Anglewood Health our efforts and engagements have led to support from organizations like greater Bergen Community Action and Bergen Newbridge Medical Center Center which letters of support you can see in our submitted proposal these aren't just mission statements for us we believe and live by the values we want to see in the dispensary in addition to our Good Neighbor policy we will be implementing a shop local initiative targeted at increasing engagement at local community businesses this program will provide customers who shop at local businesses access to a point-based system for awards and discounts within our own dispensary additionally we will be mindful of the high costs of cannabis and impact that it has on patients who can benefit from at the most we want to support our patient communities as we have experienced dealing in that substance abuse world we want to support their needs while deterring further propagation of Reliance on opioids and the black market for medicinal pain management upon doors opening we will set aside $225,000 of inventory to be sold near cost for qualified Medicaid patients to increase access to necessary care we will hire a full-time licensed clinician to be a resource for our customers to the extent they want it and need it the social worker will be a liaison to the burrow in creating and implementing resources for mental health care while the burrow and police department are doing an effective and amazing job already in bringing resources for emergency calls requiring mental health intervention our clinician will act as another support whenever needed neighborhood greens will also be engaged through direct involvement in community events and initiatives our fellow Neighbor policy will host a list of community organizations and volunteer opportunities for our teams to be able to participate in all team members will have three full business days of paid volunteer time off per year and our dispensary will be fully closed one day per year for our annual service day where we be engaged in team-wide volunteer activities on top of it all while we know the value our active efforts can have on the community we have been raised to and have strong belief in sharing the fruits of our labor we will be setting aside monies from our profits to be directly reinvested in programs across the burrow being a former volunteer EMT in Fon I would be partial to in reinvesting all of it to the River Edge volunteer ambulance court but I don't think that would be fair programs like the shade tree commission congrats Michelle on the appointment Volunteer Fire and ambulance departments food pantries Friends of the library program and many more organizations can directly benefit from this additional funding it's not that we don't know what we value rather it's finding out what the Community Values and what it needs to that extent we'll work with local leaders resident representatives and attend organizational meetings and have active conversations with local stakeholders ERS to get an understanding of what the burrow and its organizations need local governments best know what local communities need neighborhood greens will engage actively in creating Pathways to help and support those needs I'll pass it back to Ron to talk specifically about this reinvestment we're coming close to your time liit we'll be quick okay uh our financial plan projected more conservative numbers uh to give a baseline estimate on what the burrow can expect in terms of transfer tax revenue uh based on our operating strategy market dynamics uh historical sales for other similarly located dispensaries as well as an understanding of the political picture around cannabis and neighboring municipalities we believe that we can hit a $40 million run rate bringing in about 800,000 in annual tax revenue for the burough River Edge to be clear this is a number that we have to be that has to be earned by us day in day out year in year out it will require planning strong efficiency metrics exceptional customer service deep relationships with our suppliers and both sound and innovative business strategy now on top of that tax tax revenue we will be reinvesting a minimum of 3% of our profits back into the community now this 3% is just uh a floor on what we intend to put back into the community uh you know suppose the burough needs an additional 100,000 for pick ball courts uh so that they don't have to you know schp it over to New Milford uh you know done uh you know as we said Our intention is to be a community partner to the buau that can be relied upon about that can be relied upon at any time over five years accounting for both tax revenue and for profit share with the community we project over $5 million to be directed into River Edge ultimately how this additional profit share money is allocated will be based uh upon the community's needs and their direct input to ensure These funds are well targeted we will seek a representative member from the community to join our foundation's board speaking very quickly about our foundation as a president of our board Lyn algrant I think we're out of time to go to questions answers I think it's been about 20 minutes yeah yeah okay uh council president thank you for that presentation that was very thorough also um so I want to go back to the same question I asked the other uh business what about could you tell talk to me about the uh traffic I noted on my notes that you have hired someone for the traffic uh review or traffic officer or something but uh you haven't done the the assessment yet is that correct yeah um so prior to this process um the real estate was spoken for um kind of prematurely without the intention of going through an approval and application process through the borrow and the council so not having access to the actual real estate we won't don't want to be trespassing and taking some measurements that we shouldn't be doing um but the thing is we all have to go through that process right no matter who gets the resolution has to go through security planning has to go through compliance with the CH police the New Jersey CRC um and other safe holders so we've already contracted um fore and identified o site engineers and try to control um Engineers that can help us through that process okay okay and so a follow question and also um you talk to us about your approach to the um employee background and how does that work how many employees do you foresee on site um um so we project at least 26 employees in including security um and all uh because our uh employees will be non Equity holding employees they have to go through very kind of basic uh uh background checks but they still get the benefit of equity because of the profit share model so that's the way we've kind of had to think through that because there is a lot of oversight on who owns Equity within a business and a lot of controls around that from the state uh so that's kind of a workr we thought through um so any any individual especially on the management side of of the team will be going through pretty uh you know intensive background check and uh same with uh any executive teams all right we can come back to if you need it uh councilwoman can thank you mayor thank you for your presentation very um I have a few questions uh your presentation sounded more on the medical background than it did on the recreational background so am I uh to assume that you're more you've done more medical marijuana or just any marijuana so a lot of that conversation is uh from user research of what most cannabis consumers in New Jersey use cannabis for and a lot of it's for Stress Management and for mental health disorders so we wanted to make sure that we were serving that population because no they're self-medicating and so they need having that additional layer support ensures that there are safer outcomes and they're those patients are getting the those customers are getting the support they need so have you have you so yes so our yeah so Emma you know our general manager uh she the dispenser that she ran was adult use but there was also a medical component which they really you know built off a lot of uh important uh work flows upon and they found that their adult use population was able to get you know significant uh benefit from and so they expanded Scope when you say a built use you mean Recreation okay thank I've never um so yeah sorry that's a legal term yeah okay um so uh you currently have a license for um for a dispensary uh no so we this would be our first business that we'd be operating but our team does have experience in operating other licenses okay we've been awarded by New Jersey CRC um operation conditional licenses New Jersey for for Recreation for recreation okay um and so do you do you have a wholesaler that you'll be working with or yes so you know part of our business strategy is kind of solidifying relationships up and down the supply chain and we've already worked to do that with cultivators and manufacturers uh the wholesale licensing program and distribution is coming more online at this point in time for which we do have a wholesale relationship with a relationship with a distributor and wholesaler out of Garfield out ofari okay and do are you going to uh do online sales as well uh yes for online pickup yes for Onsite pickup yes councilman Benson thank you mayor thank you very much for the very detailed presentation appreciate it um just have a question for you too gentlemen so you haven't actually run a dispensary you surrounded yourselves with consultants and other people who have but you guys don't have that experience to have that right yeah we directly have not operated dispensaries um our team has and that's why our focus is being local resident we're both Burgen County natives or race here live in pis lives in Tina um so this is our home and we want to give back to communities and we want to use this where a precipice of this industry shaping it from the ground up um and being able to deliver on a future of this cannabis industry that we can be proud of our kids can be proud of so why not take this opportunity to really deliver a business that can balance profit with purpose and so our mission and what we will be uh spearheading here are the values and the ideals of that dispensary while surrounding ourselves with the team that have that experience because they will be engaged boots on the ground in the sales spores that we need them to be okay thank you so so given that so it sounds like you guys have be going to be leading by your vision of what you think this place should be and everyone will kind of gather you know follow your lead on that I'll say that the operations themselves and from an operational perspective from a compliance perspective are already informed by individuals who have done that work and built teams who have operated high volume dispensaries uh the support that we're bringing additionally to that is one strategy and integration with the local community and three just kind of operating highly regulated businesses that do have a healthcare component um you know ultimately you know we've had conversations with Healthcare Systems we've had conversations with physician groups and they find a lot of their patients are going to dispensaries and there needs to be a sort of subject matter expert to help reach that Gap and so I think between what our different the different piece members of our group have done we've collected we come together and you know hope to convey something that's special here you can see that further in our bios he's coming from more of a community engagement perspective I'm coming from leading our last business was outpatient addiction treatment facilities we built and created 15 out patient sites um and went through that process of being regulated by Department of Health's um carf uh deas having safe SP substances class one schedule of drugs we've had that experience so dispensary and the retail operations is one portion of it we obviously have a lot of administrative and background compliance security issues that we all have experience with and adhering to those standards than you I ask one more question why don't we go to um councilman glass we'll come back to you okay councilman glass two questions and then we're going to swing through n it down I knew I should limit you yeah you got advise okay um I guess the the project the revenue projections what what do you yeah what do you per how do you translate that into customers per year how many customers per year about to those Revenue projections I got my calculator yeah so recreational yeah I don't I don't have my calculator on either um customers so if you look at on a transaction basis um you know it's about $120 per recreational of for recreational uh consumer and on the kind of medical side they spend about $46 to $150 and that's on a recurring basis because it's for medicinal means each visit to the site or each water is going to be on average okay yeah so calcul 40 million so that's over 300,000 transactions for yeah and of course that's spread across seven days and I think it's important to realize what the numbers in the surrounding area have been whether that's Ascend on 17 rochell and or bramis and rise rise and bramis and then also having an understanding that there aren't going to be any any other dispensaries on Route four with exception to the rise dispensary prior to River Edge and thereafter and that's something that we've confirmed in our conversations with other municipalities reviewing their zoning of laws and their ordinances and seeing where they actually are at with the issue So based on those market dynamics and those precedent transactions that's informed us to these numbers all that's a good segue into my next question um what's what's the status of the arrangements with the property that you're targeting as far as lease um so at this point in time um as as GGA mentioned uh the property has been spoken for and you know that is what it is at this point in time but ultimately they sorry guys not their contract is in contingency to uh them receiving the um resolution receiving the resolution so if ultimately you guys decide to go with us because you think we are the better option um then we would potentially be able to speak with Mr White and you know solidify our own agreement and our our real estate agent has already been in contact with uh the repres resentative of of the property and they have confirmed that it is contingent upon resolution and should that resolution not pass um we can be in conversation understood thank you we come back to you back yeah one question I don't know if I missed it in the presentation but those neighborhoods greens has existing dispensaries already in New Jersey so we don't have an existing dispensary but we have up and running at this point in time is our foundation where we've been doing drug education prevention work and it's led by Miss Al L ALR and so that's kind of what we have up and running today in terms of operations and Outreach I think that's the big appeal here right we are the owners We Are The Operators we will be there day in and day out on the floor working with the dispensary but working in the community right we're not here to set this up to then go think about our next one that we have to Mo this is our community this we're homegrown we're going to live here we're going to raise our kids here and we want to be impactful to that thank you woman cons I think coun Benson thank you mayor um just another question for both of you um uh you've come with a lot of background you know a lot of depth around medical um mental health and so forth um so if for you personally if we were to prove this and move forward with you what would be the most challenging issue for you in moving forward and how would you address that CH personally a good question um you start yeah I would say that um I actually do have a background in retail my parents it's not the same industry but my parents had uh had home decor shops in the Upper West Side of Manhattan so growing up there that was my life every weekend every summer um so I have a lot of that kind of operational knowhow and then um know my background is the capital markets portfolio management and Financial Risk and um figuring out kind of and supporting um you know strategic operations I think uh ultimately for us um when we think about difficulties um one of the things that we kind of consider is just ensuring that um you know our employees have the right resources to do the job that they need to do but we've already solved for that by ensuring the right people are on the team and we've already pre-programmed done pre uh free a building of like a curriculum uh and I think another issue is this this being New Jersey supply chain has always been an issue um that's why we have some of the highest cost of cannabis in the country and why there's Health Equity issues uh Health inequity issues uh but we've also already soled for that as well by building relationships with our suppliers before we even got operation I have a I have a different um difficulty um we've been ronic you can see in the background and in The Proposal submitted we we've been cannabis policy for for close to a decade now both in New York and New Jersey um we've been talking with Mayors and councils up and down Route four Route 17 throughout Bergen County for the last five years we purposely even with a couple opportunities throughout the state um wanted to locate in Bergen County again home this is where we are this is where we want to be and we want to impact change right here directly so for us it's really going to be identifying key stakeholders from the community because the community has so many needs right how do we get the right commission how do we get the right uh folks on our foundation resident representatives to really deliver that impact and have it felt by every single resident right we were here when you guys had the meeting for the neighborhood to come together and talk about canus and see if you guys would approve it and move forward with the ordinance and we heard those concerns right we heard the safety concerns we heard the tax implication concerns we heard the guy Joe his name was that said if this property value is going on up or my taxes going to increase as well too right so we heard those things and it's really identifying and being part of that Vision to say hey we hear where you're coming from and let us collaborate because the business is going to happen if it doesn't happen in River Edge today it's going to happen next door five years from now how do we do it in a meaningful way that is community focused Community integrated and with the right Partnerships and collaborations um so we're making the most impa just add one other thing I'm sorry ly aland I'm former city council person at lar in angor um I spent six years there so thank you for your service L you need to give us an address oh yes sure uh 334 West 245th Street and good and I hope you don't think this rude but you won't be seen unless you stand over here oh that's right do you do I need to be yeah need to be visible to our virtual you're good right there am I good right there okay so sorry I um I left Anglewood I now live in the Riverdale section the Bronx um sadly but I still work in hackin saac and I just want to say that I um as a city council person and as a CEO of the Bergen volunteer Center uh I met these young men when I organized a fifth Friday luncheon called canab Business canab Bank can right like cannabis was coming and what did it mean for us right so the sheriff talked came and talked to us about we'll have to retrain the dogs right and like there was all of this it's coming but what does it mean for us and I was no longer on city council at that time but I understand where you sit right and um many many cannabis businesses would call nonprofits every year in August when the medical licensing was coming will you write a letter of support and we didn't know who they were and we didn't know what they wanted from us um what I found uh with these young men who were homegrown was they wanted to engage in a conversation and they wanted to be part of the community and they were from here um this is going to be a I don't know a multi-billion dollar industry and we're already seeing it happen I don't know if the profits and their resources are really coming back to our community in the way that we need them to come back to our communities uh in terms of jobs in terms of of charitable contributions and other kinds of things so I say all that to say I'm so glad that I'm not in your seat anymore this these are very difficult conversations and very difficult things to be thinking about but you want Partners who are in your community so that when your constituents are are not not feeling are not sure if they're feeling great about what's happening you can actually speak to the owners and say we need to do something different and will you help us and that's what it means when they live in your community so I just wanted to say that thank you so much for having us thank you counc Benson did you have your question answered yes thank you you have a followup question not to that I had one more question sure and then we'll go to council just a quick question I apologize if I missed this do you like what funding do you have already available for you to build this yeah in our proposal we've broken down the type of funding we have it's about $5 million of of liquid Capital um with additional interest upon resolution um we don't need to inflate numbers we have you don't need more than $5 million you don't need $5 million to make this happen um but we have the liquid Capital we have the funding sources uh to to to be operational thank you real quick question 40 000 fet what is neighborhood greens who owns it what's the structure of the organization what's it current business great question yeah so you know right now um yeah we're basically a developing cannabis organization cannabis business uh we are all locally owned in berken County uh we've taken on very little money for investors so that we can have as much say so in the business as possible and ensure that that um you know we're meeting the community objectives that we've laid out in front of us and we've also built out relationships with the right investors over a very long time to ensure that they're aligned with our community objectives as well um and I think ultimately what we're looking to do is ensure that we're with the profit opportunity that's coming here through an oper to through a business opportunity like this that purose is really being Illustrated and I think you know from our press F the work that we've already done and has worked to do uh and plan to do I think that really um kind of speaks to who we are so what's the own ship uh what kind of specifics are you looking for just partnership we are owners yeah yeah okay that's yeah we have owners uh and we have other team members who have also minority stakes in the business yeah between the core between the four four five folks on the executive team we have 100% ownership thank and that's everything's been boot trapped today thank you yeah sorry how old how how old is the company uh the foundation Foundation yeah so sorry so we have our n so we have our corporate entity and uh we applied in the 2022 licensing process so uh it's our Corporation that's been around since then uh but we've been operating through our foundation for a while you said 2022 yes okay yeah okay we thank you uh just as we explained I explained prior the council will go into close session and discuss this it may or may not come out of closed session and take action uh Council reserves the right not to and the council reserves the right to all right than you thank you very much else can we speak right now okay wait okay could I have a motion in second to open to the public on any item on the agenda only on the agenda so it's been moved in second and all in favor please say I I please take a seat state your name and address and you have the floor you have two minutes okay my name is Kathy Viola and I live at 170 Maplewood Avenue in bagota and I would be what you would probably consider an unusual Ally to Neighborhood greed I have worked in prevention as a prevention specialist for over 10 years closer to 15 in both Ocean County and Bergen County I had a grant um federally funded from the community anti-drug coalitions of America and have spoken at their conference on three separate occasions and I have one of the few people that has probably read the entire legislation that New Jersey passed and follow the minutes and so forth so um this is a field that I am very passionate about um but New Jersey passed the the legislation um some parts I think they did wonderfully compared to Colorado and Washington State and California and some parts they missed a little bit but that can be taken care of but what I like thinking about prevention and in the prevention world we do use the terminology adult use because the legislation requires you to be aged 21 or over you must be 18 with a parent to even enter uh um dispensary okay so with my preven hat on and prevention education I have worked with these gentlemen for several years and also have worked with the Growers that they want to work with in Garfield and with that in mind I worked for the center for alcohol and drug resources I worked for the institution PR for prevention and treatment so with that background I applaud them with their efforts for community service and Community engagement and education because there are so many Miss and misnomers and misunderstandings about cannabis the potential for the THC content I am also a breast cancer survivor so it may be possible that I would be a client in the future should I have a recurrence 10 seconds okay so I impla their work with the community focusing on education especially related to Youth and giving factual information and working with the Mental Health Community because of so often frequently co-occurring disorders thank you for coming thank you good luck in your decisions thank you is there any other member of the public present who would like to make a comment please come forward state your name you may give your business address or your personal address thank you may my name is Philip White and my business address is 75 route4 Eastern Riveredge and we are the landlords for sweet spot if they get this approval yeah and my office is right behind the former Liberty Travel space which would be their space and if I wasn't impressed with these people and if I didn't think they were going to do a good job and I didn't think they would conduct the business in a very legal and ethical way I wouldn't even have them there so I'm here to endorse them they've been they've been terrific to work with very honest very forthright very forward and uh I hope they I hope the council is uh is inclined to give them the opportunity to show you what they can do thank you thank you any other member of the public present any member of the uh virtual public who would like to please raise your hand I'll give it one more chance anyone present anyone virtually but I have a motion second to close to the public so second all in favor please say I I all right so uh item number nine monthly reports there are two land use reports on records and they are April 10th and April 24th and you you can get a copy if you're so interested from the buau clerk uh we have a first reading an ordinance uh and uh this is ordinance 24-14 could I have a motion from the council president and a second from uh councilwoman Kaufman motion that the following ordinance be introduced and passed on the first reading and setting July 8th 2024 at 7M or as soon thereafter as the matter can be heard as the date and time and the Riveredge library is the place and zoom is a virtual platform for the hearing of said ordinance ordinance 24-14 ordinance by the bur of River Edge uh in the county of Bergen New Jersey amending and supplementing the River Edge burrow code chapter 350 site plan review and chapter 416 zoning so moved second um Miss apola can you please uh give us a synopsis of what we're trying to achieve here yes as recommended by the land youth board this ordinance was Rises definitions updates and clarifies lot coverage covered torches Corner Lots accessory structure requirements modifies terminology used for site plan review of retail food establishments all right now um Mr shanian I believe it would be correct to say that if the council approves it tonight it would then go to the lanard board the lanard board would then review it and make recommendations or endorsements as they see fit and then it would come back to the council and if it needed to be modified then it would have to be reintroduced is that correct could not have set it better myself excellent okay uh this is open for debate is there debate seeing none uh this is a first reading so it be by acclamation all in favor please say I I any opposed any exstension hearing none it is unanimous second reading and hearing on ordinance the following ordinance published here within was the first read by title on May 13 2024 and posted on the bulletin board outside of the clerk's office ordinance 24-13 and ordinance to authorize a special emergency appropriation njs 4A col 4-53 could I have a motion from councilwoman canella second from councilman Benson to open to the public on the ordinance someone second all in favor please say I I is there any member of the public who would like to ask a question make a statement um in regards to this ordinance please raise your hand if you're virtual please come forward if you're in um in present in the room today giving the virtual people just a few moments if they need it seeing none could I have a mo motion from councilman glass and a second from uh council president monsano Cohen to close to the public move second all in favor please say I I could I have a motion from councilwoman Kaufman and a second from councilwoman Cella to move the adoption so moved second it has been moved in second it is open for debate uh inquiry or comment seeing none I will call the question Madame Clerk yes yes yes yes Mo yes I apologize one of the things I normally do is have the ba uh give a short synopsis the council certainly knows it uh but I should have done that uh if you could miss appella yes the purpose of this is to finance the first payment required for a rly revaluation of all residential and commercial property in the burrow we have been ordered to do so by the county so it will be a multi-year process the first this first year the entire bural will be reassessed and for the property values to be consistent with Market rates based on a formula determined by the state and then there is a second goal around where these properties all properties will be evaluated but it would be 20% at a time over the next five years all right um so uh we have resolutions now item number 12 resolutions 24172 through 24-1 188 any member of council wish to call out for a separate vote debate or wish to ask a question before we move these I do councilwoman canella just on 24-1 1886 Point Tre supervisor um I just um um our m is is that the person that's going to be um in charge kind of like Fielding calls for the the trees trees yes you can't speak I don't know what's happen this is the point person in conjunction with the DPW superintendent okay I have a question about that ordinance or that resolution also sure go ahead so um thank you um this is an appointment right and it's a current employee yeah of the DPW and uh the resolution is for an annual salary of $92,200 what's the current Sol um current salary is about off the top of my head around 7,000 less because this position is at a foreman level and this person is um uh a tree CL clim so this elevates him to the managerial thank you thank you any other questions about any of the resolutions is there any objection to moving the resolution resolutions as a block seeing none could I have a motion second to move 24172 through 24-1 188 so mooved second it has been moved in seconded this is open for debate is there debate inquiry comment hearing none um this would be by acclamation all in favor please say I I any opposed any extension hearing none it is unanimous if we could have the finance chair Council kman move 24-1 189 payment of the bills payment of bills at a regular meeting of the mayor and Council of the buau of R County of Bergen state of New Jersey held on May 30th 2024 be it resolved that the mayor and Council of the Bureau of Riveredge approved the following expenditures current fund 1,555 18056 General Capital fund 8,935 197 granch fund $2,799 181 trust other fund $2,724 197 developers escrow $3,160 Recreation trust $ 4,896 20116 so moved but I have a second from a member of of the finance committee second it's been moved and seconded all in favor please say I I any oppose any exstension it is unanimous new business River Edge Road train train station parking lot Miss apella yes there was an iny inquiry about opening up our the train station parking lot for nonresidential commuter permits it has um been reviewed by the police department and based on the memo that's in in your agenda packet they are recommending um allowing approximate no more than 15 nonresident uh vehicles to park in the lot of course it's first come first serve um if the governing body wishes to move forward with this ordinance an ordinance needs to update the burough code um chapter 400 section 12 nonresidents um parking was allowed and it was repealed back in 2003 so it did exist at one point so in addition to updating the ordinance to reflect allowing the non-residential parking fees will have to be determined the residential parking permit fee is currently $72 quarterly annually $220 and the last increase for residential um parking permits was in 2018 so uh this is uh for us to consider I think it's a good idea because the parking spaces are not being used it's we we have people not commuting every day of the week and it seems a waste to allow these spaces to go unused so um if if the council was so inclined it would be moved to a first reading it is open for debate discussion inquiry is there any does uh is is is this being um put forth because there's interest in in from other from outside me um I can answer that yes I actually was someone reached out to me and said um you know we I I need to use it I live in New Milford but I can't use it uh could could it be cons considered so then I sent it uh I I sent an email back to ba and asked her to inquiry with the police department and the police department I think uh it would be fair to say supports the idea yes and it was reviewed with the traffic and Safety Committee members yes we left that up yeah makes sense to me yeah but not more than more than 15 spots right well we can always change that but that's what they thought traffic and safety and the police department thought were was a reasonable start we can reduce it or increase it as needed and of course it takes just two Council meetings to do that okay amen yes um yeah I would want there to be a cion right you know a residents are the priority we squeze so hopefully the police department considered that they did um the best of my knowledge thank you the finance committee we did have some discussion about this I think it's a good idea now it's a potential source of Revenue I have two questions um would we want to charge like a slightly higher fee for ad of borrow residents and my second question is if we go forward with this could we Rel look at it every year because I find more and more people are going back yeah we might want to reduce it we want to want to play it by ear um with the uh fee structure uh we could leave it up to the uh ba and the um CFO as well as other um experts from the police department to recommend uh first of all should we keep the rate at the 218 for residents and non-residents should be slightly higher uh but uh uh I think we could leave that to them and then if we didn't like it we wouldn't move it when it comes to us yeah right now I mean we're charging um INB residents which I think is fine is less than what a monthly commu a rail tickets yeah so just to give some perspective on what we might want to but remember if you're if you're if you're getting the parking space you are doing a monthly Community Rail ticket no I'm just saying I'm just trying to put a value in oh yes of course I agree no I agree it's pretty cheap that's what I'm saying what we're tring presiden is cheap so let's think about what we want to charge out of butter resence okay um if the council is in agreement uh we will then task the VA to uh come up with an ordinance with our with our Council and with those experts uh police department Traffic Safety if necessary and uh then an ordinance will be presented to us and if we're not happy with the ordinance on the first reading we can of course not move it and send it back or um if if we have uh enough time we I don't think we could amend at that moment but uh you will get an advanced copy and and perhaps then we could amend before it's published I'll read it yes you do I love that make sure I spell in punctation yes yes absolutely I just have one oh hold on hold on uh all in favor of mov forward please say no could I have a a motion in second Mo second all in favor please say I I okay so uh it's been I just have one side uh topic related to this when I was looking this up for the agenda packet what was interesting is the buau clerk's office processes this but it's always been on the books that the applications and permits were issued by the police department so do you want to keep the language as is I want the language to be in compliance with what we're doing and also um in in regards to councilman glass's comment and I think council's General um opinion we should look at what's uh comparable parking lots and uh we should be somewhere around there if we're uh with what we're doing but we don't need to debate that right now we'll leave that to you all right is that acceptable to everyone yeah okay is there any other new business is there any old business okay could I have a motion for member Council to open to the public on any issue whatsoever some move second all in favor please say I I any member present or virtually virtually please raise your hand if you're present and you'd like to ask a question make a comment uh please come forward at this time okay we're going to give our virtual uh few more minutes minutes not I meant moments I meant figuratively okay I can I have a motion second to close to the public say uh all in favor please say I okay now before we go to council comments um couple of things we're gonna go into close session but we are not going to close the public portion of the meeting we're going to Simply suspend it and then when we come back out we may or may not take action it is completely our option in fact Mr shanian just to underline that I believe during the public sessions that we've had and our conversations o on many occasions the council has no obligation to issue any endorsement even though we've had two presenters that is correct but we do have the option of issuing one endorsement by ordinance that is correct um as there's only one location that's right viable well but I also think that we only gave one license correct in the ordinance so I just wanted to underline that so um so we'll see where we are at when we do that we're up for Council comments could does any member of council wish to offer a comment about any Liaisons or anything else before we go into Clos session the only comment I have mayor is that I just want to thank um the two presenters spot and neighborhood greens for their presentations it was very thorough and very appreciated thank you thankk I think everyone in the council would agree with that I would also like to commend uh the farmers market we've had two shows right and it's going swimmingly yes yes yes because it's it's a performance it's a it's a shopping opportunity thank you to thank you to our ba for sending out Thursday morning next let remind everyone because I think that's really helping I think that is too I think it's become it's not just a farmers market it's not just a place where you can hear some free excellent music but it's become a community event and I we saw that tonight where a lot of people showed up and stayed and um and there was a lot of people who made this possible but Michelle let's be honest if it wasn't for you I don't know that it would ever be the way it is and we we were we're very grateful for your uh industry and your and and your your un un tenacity yeah tenacity yeah it's it's great it's great thank you I love doing it and Steve the musical component and know of course our volunteer musical parts have a lot a lot of volunteers from town faculty meeting and Boger Bros yes so yes is that going by now Boger Bros say Brer Brothers yeah I thought they B Brothers okay um enough of this we we it's almost nine o'clock and we do need to go in close session could I have a would it be a motion to suspend or a motion to it would just be a motion to go and a close the public portion of meeting is still going to be open because you haven't closed the meeting okay could I have a motion to go into close session uh ordin um I'm sorry resolution 24-19 attorney client privilege njsa 10 col 4-12 B7 deliberation on potential cannabus retail establishment presentations second all those in favor please say I I okay uh we're going to go into close session and I don't know how that one's going to take but uh we will be coming back like a motion second to go back into Open session so move second all in favor I I roll call here ccom here coun Larry is absolutely prior notice counc here yeah here is there a motion yes uh mayor I make a motion to authorize our attorney to create a resolution demonstrating proof of local support for sweet spot is there a second second it is open for debate is there debate hearing none roll call Madam clerk yes coun yes coun yes coun yes so what we have done for the Public's benefit is we have authorized our attorney to create a resolution and that resolution will be voted on on June 10th or the nearest date after that uh to offer a letter of local support local support for sweet spot at that time all right is there uh any other Council comments could I have a motion and second to adjourn the public meeting second all in favor please say I I thank you all you