for the delay meeting of the Cannabis Control Board of the city of Jersey City held Monday June 24th 2024 at approximately 518 uh at Ford Jackson Square in accordance with the open public uh meetings act known as the sunshine act adequate notice of the meeting was provided by mail and or facts can I get a call to order roll call chairperson Bunny here Vice chair cantero here commissioner kaplowitz here absent our commissioner Sloan and Marte Dublin all right with that with the board's permission I'm going to be calling license renewal pursuing to chapter section 84 51d of the Jersey City Municipal Code CCB 22-12 Downtown Flower LLC would you please step up make yourself comfortable please all right Frank nice to see you again see counil make yourself comfortable enter your appearance into the record good evening everybody whoa Frank Vito SS cus and gross on behalf of Downtown Flower hello Amanda handy Downtown Flower hello Jazz Randall Downtown Flower all right let's just swear both of you folks in the swear firm the testimony about to give be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you God yes all right please state your name spell your last name and then we'll go to the left of you Amanda handy h a n d y and where do you live now Amanda Jersey City ah you did move I did yeah jez Randall jzz Randall r d a l l o and your address um the full address sure she could give the town Jersey City okay fair enough all right all right board members uh well first of all Mr R do you have anything want to tell the board then the board members may or may not have some questions for the applicant sure um this is our renewal hearing and so miss handy does have some remarks she'd like to make about what the current status of the business is and um just give you an update and how they're doing and go ahead Miss Andy thank you your remains waren go ahead all right so um we do have 80% of um people employed at Downtown Flower who live in reside in Jersey City um 75% of those um are minority um we are we are still with the Hope House and continuing support with the Hope House miracle temple um the whole Spectrum autism um we're doing everything with all three organizations excuse me um we have the summer program starting with Miracle Temple the week after July 4th um for kids in the just Jersey City area um just to give them something to do um whole Spectrum autism we have a gala this week all are invited um to support kids adults everyone on the Spectrum um we have monthly events for them um for free um most of the people are Jersey City and surrounding areas so we've expanded um and that's about it why don't you tell them how your business is doing the our business is doing fairly well um we're right at 141 Newark we have we still are getting new um clients every day we're getting competition um friendly competition so all is well um seeing a lot of people servicing everyone so far from all of our customers City people everybody we're getting great feedback um so we're doing what we're supposed to and if you have anything heard any feedback please share with us and we'll be happy to address it thank you for that thank you of course question yeah uh how's business compared to your business model that you presented to us two years ago are you on schedule or behind or ahead we're uh I guess we're on schedule it's changing it's changing right now especially for summer we never had a summer really we open opened up late uh no Late July early August for the medical mhm recreational was October so we've never really had a summer yet um so we're going with with the changes of people going down the shore to the Hampton um just leaving Jersey City all right but so far no complaints any additional testimony fair enough anybody else from the the board I don't have any questions um I just would like to say I live in the downtown part of Ward d uh I walk my dogs on New York Avenue and honestly and I'm very involved as well with whole Spectrum autism which is completely unrelated to how I met Amanda I met Amanda here and I think Stacy and I were probably the most critical of her application but I've seen Amanda like completely immerse herself in Jersey City firsthand with whole Spectrum with Pastor Cherry with the downtown Sid um I see her dad down there putting down out hay bales and pumpkins like her whole family kind of just really jumped into Jersey City and it is something that really impressed me because some of the other applicants um have been causing issues and doing some things that aren't what they committed to doing on their initial applications so it was very refreshing to see someone come in and actually honor their word and honor their commitments and while Jose wasn't here when we interviewed Amanda Jeff was and Stacy isn't here but we were very hard on her application I think we made them come back three or four times and so um I just wanted to say I do think they've done a really good job and honored their commitments which is the most important thing to me personally how do you find how do you find your business uh the medical versus the recreational it's totally different um medical is we still we see about 50 to 70 patients weekly mhm um it doesn't compare to the recreational um but we still prioritize medical um they come in and they get right to the front of the line um we have a separate Vault for them and a menu um so everything that we have available for medical is or no everything available for recreational is available for medical um plus some that are medical only would you say your business is uh 7030 recreational 10% 90% 10% 90% okay isn't it true that people are just not getting the medical cards now that it's legal and there's dispensaries literally everywhere yeah so there's one cultivator who is Medical Only they're called Breakwater and people get the license only for um for them MH um well some people like keeping their medical license yeah especially for traveling purposes if they go outside of anywh where where it's legal recreationally I know they oh no once you leave the state that's it your medical license doesn't translate in any other state yeah but at least if like you know they get into any issue they can show that they are a person that has a medical card depending on what state you're in yeah yeah there's nothing else from the board I'll open up to the public if anybody has any comments regarding this application uh hearing none seeing none bring it back to the board quite frankly for a motion to either recommend or not recommend renewal of the City License I'll make a motion for Renewal I'll second right um chairwoman bunny I'm going to abstain not because I don't agree with the application but just to avoid any conflict of interest all right Vice chairman cerero I and commissioner Capal I vote I congratulations I'm glad you're succeeding and you actually met everything that you stated during your long process of getting open yes appreciate it thank you good luck congratulations best of luck thank you very much everybody talk to good work Frank nice to see you again good to see you all right with the board's permission we will now call uh CCB 22-13 the Cannabis place for 420 Corporation is there someone from that there we go all right nice to see you again hello good afternoon all right please raise your right hand do you swear from the testimony about to give you the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to help you God I do all right please state your name uh spell your last name and give us your address uh my name is osber oruna uh spelling on my uh first name is OS B ASM boy e r t spelling on my last name is o r d u and a uh address is 5036 Holiday Drive in pno Summit what would you like to tell the board sir I'd like to tell the board that I literally just raced here from uh the capital where I gave testimony uh regarding uh new legislation that's on the table uh that impacts Jersey City and the Cannabis industry as a whole uh so if I'm a little out of breath it's been a long day that wasn't the siloc right no it's uh 3235 is the bill number uh basically oh the hemp the hemp correct the intoxicating hemp which is a major issue uh that we're facing here in Jersey City as licensed businesses because of the fact that you know so many of these smoke shops gas stations Etc are selling these thco thcp products you know Bas to anybody exactly to kids to anyone is that like that Delta 8 it is a delta8 it's uh Frankenstein cannabis is to refer to it as um and it undermines the legitimacy of our industry it undermines our ability to operate within the marketplace uh so I would love to see the CCB in Jersey City take some action at the local level we have no Authority as well we have no the CCB has no Authority the only Authority in Jersey City would be the Board of Health or the police department and right now it's legal so neither one of those has any yeah you know what this bill is doing is it's trying to close that Gap and uh unfortunately you have the alcohol industry now that's trying to come into the space and circumvent the entire cannabis Regulatory Commission process and be able to sell these THC products through liquor stores uh which again not yes which would take away you know 2% of the sales of these THC products from the city um and and really just again make it something that that undermines the uh industry as a whole I can't believe we're we're dealing with that that's been around for a while and it's dangerous substance MH all right so we are here for your renewal is there anything that you would like to tell the board with respect to that City license renewal absolutely so first and foremost uh I would like to say that you know when we came last before you you know we uh we I spoke about a lot of things and I made a lot of promises about having a diverse Workforce about um being a community partner how we were going to utilize our community impact room to hold events that are you know safe space type events how we were going to leverage our contacts in the industry to bring you know National organizations to Jersey City to uh you know uh participate in different types of programming to help educate the Jersey City Community as a whole uh so the opportunities within the Cannabis industry and as to the Cannabis industry as a whole so I'm PR proud to say that you know we have uh 20 employees uh at the Cannabis place um all of our employees are Hudson County residents 17 of our employees are Jersey City residents uh 19 of our employees are minority either black or Latino uh three are female six I identify as LGBT btq plus individuals uh two are Justice involved individuals and two are also uh Mobility slh handicapped individuals as well um we've held 11 uh different events in our community impact room um you know again a safe space for different persons within the community to come and meet uh in our community impact room this again is a non-consumption non-cannabis space that's adjacent to our dispensary uh where we we've held educational events we've held um you know art events music events yoga events different types of of uh events really to bring the community together around uh and see that you know this is a safe space for everyone to share we don't charge anyone to use the space uh literally you know the organization submits a uh a request we review it and uh thus far we've you know 11 times uh held these 11 events um our advocacy work you know comes not only from myself with things things such as today you know being and testifying on behalf of you know giving the voice uh to Jersey City cannabis uh licensed cannabis businesses but also bringing organizations such as the minority cannabis Business Association um and bringing them together with you know the Jersey City diversity equity and inclusion committee uh being on that uh committee to to um create these events at Hudson County Community College uh I've also uh with my team met with NJCU uh and brought the UFCW together with NJCU to uh discuss ideas around certificate programs to help expand the knowledge of the Cannabis industry and the Cannabis industry Workforce within Jersey City and Beyond um you know again just a multitude of different uh advocacy types type of events that uh are very important to creating an industry that is going to be the example for others to follow I'm proud to say that this July um we're going to send formal invitations we will be signing our Union recognition agreement um where we will be the first uh Union dispensary in Hudson County in Jersey City in North Jersey in New Jersey that is independently owned that is not has not where we are recognizing the union we are recognizing our employees um you know we did the Union pre-apprenticeship program where 22 individuals went through our uh Union pre-apprenticeship program we're the first in the nation to ever do a collaborative program with the Union uh so I'm proud to say that we're we're doing a lot of positive things uh not only for our our staff but for the Greater Community and the greater cannabis industry as a whole well thank you for that yeah thank you we appreciate that any questions from the board members I'm going to ask the same question um how do you find business today compared to what your performer was Are You On Target behind ahead I'd say uh an honest assessment is we're behind uh the reality is we have for example on our block uh this uh you know smoke shop that uh you know where uh the police department has taken enforcement action in the past that was selling unlicensed cannabis we have another place literally diagonal from us that does the same thing in addition to that um you know you guys approved the day that we were approved you approved a business uh 250 ft from us uh that uh you know went on and got their uh planning board approval and ultimately their city council resolution now they have their uh annual approval and which violates the 600t rule um but you know they're 250 ft from us and ultimately you know they're going about their construction process uh sales are already behind what our performer performers show once this business opens up it's just going to further have a negative impact on our operations and so uh yeah we are uh you know it's a very challenging market and it's becomes even more challenging when unfortunately our elected officials don't do what they say they're going to do and don't follow the the regulations and ordinances that they have passed uh for the rest of us to follow well we I know the board wishes you much success any U comments or anything else questions from uh those folks in the audience on the testimony thus far or hearing none seeing none back to the board for a presumably a motion to either recommend or not recommend renewal of the City License I'll make a motion for Renewal second all in favor all right all right there's two members voting good luck to you thank you very much appreciate it have a great evening to you all right back to the chair Junior and osber nice to see you guys as well best of luck uh okay um I don't think we have anything to memorialize right now thank you we do oh okay I'm sorry well first of all the two that we just did did and I'm just having uh acting Vice chair sign that uh and there is an older one that has been hanging out in the it was a final resolution uh in the matter of the application of cream dispensary at 284 that was for a final uh approval um chairperson you were absent right so can I get a I've sent this around several times and asked for a an electronic vote but you guys are awfully busy so motion by uh second thank you um all in favor I all right any opposed this is gets this get signed by thank you yeah no I know I was going to pass it on to him thank you so that takes care of that and then while we're at it uh I think in front of you Jose you've got the Cannabis Place 420 uh that would be the recommendation for the city to renew uh so if we could get a motion followed by a second motion second all in favor I that takes care of that one and then Downtown Flower motion we've got oh you already signed it we've got a motion is there a second second second and all in favor I all right okay that memorializes that okay the only thing that I wish to discuss in the open discussion is attendance of the board members I think it's something I don't want to single anyone out I just feel that it needs to be brought to the council's attention that we're having attendance issues and they need to be addressed because I know several of the board members are doing everything they can to get here and I do understand we all have conflicts of conflicts scheduling conflicts jobs families events but I don't think it's fair that four of us are consistently showing up and one person is often not here um I it's nothing again it's not a personal thing it truly is just I know I've spoken to Jose and Sonia about this but there are times where some of us have a conflict but no we have to be here because if we aren't here the meeting won't go forward and that's not fair to the applicants I feel very strongly and I want to say this on the record that every applicant should be treated equally and fairly and especially these businesses who are open we should not be delaying them so I would like to make a motion for Ron mandelo to draft a letter to not just the council president but to the entire Council to be sent via the city clerk to address how we deal with attendance and also to give the board a status update as to why the amendments to the Cannabis ordinance are just sitting idle yeah right um so I we just need a second yeah second um and we discussed this I I know you were out um chairperson but um we actually spoke about this at our last meeting as well we wanted to bring this to your attention as well as put it on the record so that um there was a recording of it um and I'm glad that you are um proceeding with uh making this motion and I'll second it you know just for comments maybe the board should be also expanded to seven I don't think I would like alternates instead of expanding it to seven have alternates so if we're not available someone could fill in or I don't care I change the ordinance either alternates or expand the board I don't care or just give us a member who's going to show up I don't care how they fix the problem I just know that that it it's unfair to the the job that we were all appointed to do that may be the solution alternates two alternates yeah there just has to be some solution because we cannot delay these businesses especially the open ones disagree and we also have to figure out and which I don't know Ron maybe this is another part of your letter but another issue that I am conflicted by is these businesses who are not yet open who are holding pins in the m app and there's no expiration date we're just blind and I know it takes a long time to open these businesses but it's it's concerning because there's so much money being spent on this industry and we have voted no on applications based on previous applications who are holding pins in the map but aren't open and seemingly may never open and aren't giving us status updates so I don't know how we address that well we actually talked about last meeting and there's got to be a time limit when you you know get an approval by us to make sure that they go through the process otherwise they keep it open and um there was a little testimony earlier on that states that you know we're approving other uh cannabis within a certain location close to another location because there's no pin in the in the map because we give an approval but technically it's not really approval until they go to all the steps yeah there should be there should be an exploration in the ordinance I agree I always put them right and I think that that's important I think that we should make a recommendation that after you come to us you have a period of a short period of time to go to planning and if you're not coming back with an annualized permit to operate cannabis May maybe it's sunshine or give it a a reasonable time but it's open now like couple of years for a lot of these companies yeah a lot of these businesses have been holding a pin in the map for years with no progress no update I got an email just so the board knows Marquee is in the process of getting updates from every applicant that we have I think we have maybe three remaining and then we'll send over a report for the board members so they understand the status of where everyone is for the most part I think almost every application so far has a plan to open by the end of the year I mean I think I I think we should also realize that even the state process is very long so I unless we can get a real feel from the state on exactly the time frame it takes for them to review these applications because I get notification prior to an application being reviewed by the state and I probably get a call once every two months where they're looking at two or three applications at most so I think we you know we we need to find out those time frames prior to putting any kind of expiration on the approvals I don't think just to be very clear I think Mayar does a very good job I think Maria does a very good job I don't think any of this is that they're not being proactive I just think that we have these businesses that are open and it's unfair to them that these people are holding on to licenses and and you know and also we see we saw what happened with one applicant they're they're selling the license to like the business structure is completely changing right so what we intended for this to be was local Jersey City residents and we literally were hammering people about that and and being very um I don't know what word I was just trying to say we were criticizing people who didn't live in Jersey City and we were you know like downtown flower is a perfect example she did move to Jersey City we I think it was Stacy who said she's not going to do that but she did and so my concern is now the licenses are also being sold to people who don't live in Jersey City and applications that we approved if they came in their true form now would not have been approved Britney if you remember about you know a while back I actually raised this issue that you know a lot of these applicants won't survive or ever open then they would sell their location or their business to multi-state operators but that's why I think well that's why I'm saying on the record I think this Ron needs to bring this to the entire council's attention What's Happening Here in writing so that it's it's addressed because me making phone calls isn't moving anything in any direction so I think it needs to be a formal letter from the board expressing the concerns of what we're seeing well the one thing I will say is that it's not illegal if I lived here and I want to sell my license I can do that sure right but why wouldn't you have to come back in front of the board well um it's not in the ordinance I guess and the the other thing is we need to revisit the cap we're at 65 how many Maria 65 yeah we're just setting people up to fail at this point we're literally just setting people up to fail you know which is probably why people stopped applying because they realized there's too many licenses right and you know look uh you sell a liquor license you have to go back to the ABC correct you have to you know I've sold a couple of liquor license I know and I that's why I think New Jersey in general has to really re view this whole cannabis process I mean it's the the newest and biggest industry that's come to the state of New Jersey in I don't know Ron how long decades yeah sure and it's just it's not we're not doing it well and in Jersey City I don't think we're doing the best job that we could be doing and it's because the ordinance is stalled so I will ask um obviously the council if we could get some direction on uh attendance uh requirements and whether or not they would be open to some alternate members and then ask them where are we at with amendments to the Cannabis ordinance Tom I think worked pretty hard on some amendments that seemed to just be uh in the wind it's I think it's installed with the council members all right well and Tom's no longer with the city yes yeah yeah you said that a lot of these companies uh they they tell you that they're going to open up by the end of the year uh have most of these companies actually gone through the entire process of us planning uh Council resolution converting from a conditional to an annual license and they're just waiting to do their work or answer that she's the one so so yes everybody that we followed up with have full Municipal approval right so we're waiting but how many people is that it's a maybe a little over 40 some OD people so far theyve gone through everything they've gone through all of our processes the state so once they got through the city council right we were done right so they've sent it off to the state they're waiting for their you know whether they change it over from conditional to annual we don't usually hear back from them so what I've done was I reached out I sent the M forms to fill out to let me know where they are in the process what's your expectation to you know date to open and pretty much everyone maybe two I'm still waiting for has said they expect the open either at the end of this year some still saying in July August September I got maybe three or four that says early 2025 but they've explained where they are a lot of them are in the buildout it's um the building like it's all of those issues that they're having and so far I'm seeing that it's taking about two years or longer for these applicants to get to this point it's looking like that like even with BL Blossom like Blossom was our first application and they just got to this point of opening up and like that's a 2-year three-year process so what I've noticed from what they're saying so far is that there a lot of them are just in this this middle stage of like buildout construction things like that and that's what why they think they can open in August or that's why they think they can open the beginning of Jan you know in the beginning of the year so I just don't think this is sustainable and I I think it's I I feel bad for all of the applicants at this point because there's just too many licenses and the ordinance is too weak we were put in a position where basically we couldn't deny as we saw we lost in court and I I just I feel bad for the applicants I I would suggest suggest people to you know write to the council and express your concern that the the ordinance is not being reviewed it's just it's sitting stagnant well I did speak in front of the Council on this issue about a couple months ago and I asked for a moratorium and every council member just said no oh Court Courtney just got here there is a moratorium yeah the moratorium applications no new applications oops well when I when I was there they weren't going to consider it so maybe they have no we we did the moratorium a long time ago no March 15th 2023 was the first moratorium and it's been and it took effect in like June right because it was supposed to be immediate but then I think we gave people 60 days no no March 15th oh right but you still you still accepted applications even no no we only heard applications that were already in the pipeline we did not AC hear them but I thought people were still you're still allowed to send them in just so there's an order when it opens back up but right the board hasn't seen any applications from May 15th and we've only received two or three yeah not many anybody you've seen has been they submitted prior to May 15th all right no we haven't gotten any maybe two or three that I'm just holding on to some people are still willing to you know submit and pay the application fee and let it sit there because that's all it's doing they're sitting there and we're up to how many are open nine 10 10 open and still you know there I mean obviously people are still calling in about the other licenses but for the retail has anybody called you and said they're not opening nope not one and I asked I mean I got an email from an attorney that represents forgive me I always mix the name up is it U Mary Jane or Aunt Mary's Aunt Mary Mar on Bergen Avenue that's not going to to work out there's an issue with the landlord and they are not they're going to yeah resend but Mar hasn't gotten is she I have to but I'm not sure she had full Municipal approval so again we only reached out to the people that have full Municipal there are some that are still waiting for planning and still going through that process but so we haven't reached out to them yet because we understand like planning could take forever but we wanted to know the people that have G through the three steps with us where are you because you're the ones that we're expecting to open right now like you the ones that have the topal no I understand that before we should put on a record that commissioner Sloan's here president um I think there's nothing we can do about the bureaucratic process of getting on agendas right we only meet once a month we had to change our meeting date because of other meetings that are now in person here which is fine but so we meet at the end of the month the council only meet meets twice per month does the planning board meet once or twice twice twice so it's also a race to get on the agenda the planning board has a hard stop I think for like 10 or 11 they stop hearing for the night usually so if you don't get through it and there's a very contested I understand I just I just feel bad for the Cannabis I mean my only job is the Cannabis applications and that's our job and I feel bad for those applicants because and I feel bad for the ones who are open because but also can I say like I think the other ones that haven't don't have full Municipal the pin in the map doesn't go in until city council right so the people that are still what I found out from planning is that planning can still stop people like remember we spoke to them about that so there are people who haven't gone to planning yet yeah and let's say they're 250 ft away from one that has already they can stop that at that level so there's still that opportunity I was not aware of that planning told us that recently this is also why we haven't really followed up with them okay right but so okay no I understand what you're saying there I know she was worried about the pin in the like all of these people that are holding spots but there are still opportunities where important to recognize you don't need planning board approval to get an annual license from the state they don't care about your planning board now you need that for the City License obviously right but but once they get annual um they're probably going to open up but yeah but they can't get annual without so out of the 40 without the SE out of the 40 that you talked to and responded how many have uh gone from conditional to annual by the state any of them um I believe plenty of them have I don't have the exact number of who cuz some apply for conditional to be converted and then some were going straight to annual M off the top of my head I cannot say which how many or which number is which but by so we can include that in please but I I have another question how how do we know that these applicants are being truthful like wouldn't if they haven't pulled permits I mean they're clearly still not ready to move forward right I mean Ron state would have that information to your point if you don't convert your conditional within 180 days and then ask for one or two EX itions it goes away it goes away so then why isn't the state notifying mayard and Maria of that I mean there has to be overwhelmed yeah um well this is all very concerning because again I feel people are holding pins in the map or things aren't just it's just not fair to the applicants who are actually who if we could do it all over again I would do a lot of of things different but we can't but where we are now how do we address some of the missteps that were made initially to correct the where we're going I think the first thing is find out from the state yeah and find out where those applications are so once you have your information we should cross reference it with the state CRC to find out where those applicants actually are in the process what is the total number today we have approved I think around it's 60 it's over 60 okay but the the issue is there are people who came in front of us more than two years ago who are still not open and are probably never opening and are not being honest with the board about that and possibly holding pins in the map and it's not helping the city figure out what is the Cannabis industry in Jersey City the the unfortunate reality of it is we are going to have to have a cap at some point because it's just it's it's not like restaurants they all are selling the same product there it there's nothing really to differentiate them other than their employees their their branding their locations but really they're all selling the same product and I feel bad that we're setting people up to potentially fail because it's just not fair and I they all took a risk they applied for these licenses I understand all of that but we also have made many missteps along the way that I feel we need to try to fix yeah but missteps as a small business owner myself I mean it's the landscape has gotten very different the context in the beginning was not as decisive right where they could be and how they could be but the issue here becomes I don't know for me it's proximity right we've got streets with three stores and four so Central Avenue has 11 I was always against that so and we spoke to that earlier but again we are here just being of service and we've shared I I thought we did right from the beginning we saw that I think it was like our third meeting right was like wow all these people are going to nework Avenue Central that so you know right no but the point is it just needs to be we're talking about addressing the council again to try to fix this this board has no authority to amend the ordinance or do anything the motion here's my question we're asking manner to check with the state to see the status of these applications where and see how you know they're accurate in their response to the survey if indeed that they're near nowhere near the state do we have any authority to say no not the CCB the ordinance doesn't the only Authority we have is the authority given to us by the ordinance the ordinance we've been saying for more than a year now needs to be redone there are changes that need to be made the changes have been made and then we've realized more changes and we've gone back to the council and to the law department and the ordinance is still sitting there so so basically we're sitting here discussing uh where everybody is and basically we have no Authority at this point doing no the the board has no Authority the council does have the authority to amend the ordinance to address the concerns that we have so the motion that I made was for Ron to write the letter to the coun addressing these issues so that it's in writing to all nine of them does the council have the authority to uh vacate a resolution of support yeah I believe it's within their Authority they should put it in the ordinance and I think they can but if a reasonable period of time 18 months has gone by and you still don't have an annual license something's wrong yeah okay so there's a motion and a second what the state says then we can make this the period for the state to Grant annual licenses has shrunk drastically now remember everybody rushed right to the door they had 100 thousands yeah we'll have that now so can I just ask your motion just I I I get I'm here late I'm very sorry for that um can she even vote on the motion and she wasn't here for all of it um well we could uh I guess dissect it because she has been here for the amendments to the Cannabis ordinance okay so my motion was to write a letter to the council addressing attendance addressing alternates or additional board members because we're having issues with Quorum um my other one was why hasn't the ordinance moved and then talking about the time that people can hold on to these licenses right which I think was an amendment to thein so one two three SE yeah three well no one letter three things that he's addressing okay so I made a motion to second that so can we vote on it yeah I there was an extensive discussion about me sending a letter to the council about getting some guidelines with respect to attendance that was essentially the first one and um if someone or folks can't make it to the meeting we would like to ask the Council if perhaps they would appoint alternates so that that was the the sum and substance of the entire first point so now that you are aware of that I'm comfortable that you can vote on it okay okay so there's a motion on a second I I I oh I all right I draft a letter I will first circulate it to you folks uh for comment and see where we go from there okay a motion to adjourn second oh can we hold off are we going to discuss renewals moving forward what was that are we going to discuss how we're going to handle renewals let have a discussion right now so we don't have the discussion in front of okay sure on the record uh the one thing we have said is that the majority owner has to be present for the application to be heard MH especially in the case where they have changed ownership in any meaningful way like Blossom did right so is this for the the final resolution or renewal which actually we is not in the ordinance we're supposed to have one final hearing the final hearing well if the ordinance gets amended the final hearing goes away so uh it's more of the renewal I would think there's no guidance in the ordinance for renewals this came down from the Law Department earlier this week mayard Maria and I were trying to figure it out um we all agreed in a consensus the Law Department the count everyone agreed that we should not be delaying the open businesses so we need to get them on the agenda as quickly as possible even if it means short notice because Ron pointed out that we don't know what happens if there's a lapse in their state license so we went out of our way to make sure to accommodate Downtown Flower and the Cannabis Place 420 today because they are open they are generating Revenue they're paying taxes to the city of Jersey City and so those businesses should should take prefer preference over anything else so Ron agreed with that the Law Department agreed Maynard and Maria and myself all agreed I do believe mayard and Maria sent an email to all of you asking for your feedback which you were to independently submit to them because we cannot reply all to each other on the emails my concern was really just asking how many employees they hired is it close to the percentage that they committed to hiring from Jersey City is it a diverse Workforce are they doing their social and Community engagement um and then anything really they want to share with us like we heard this evening right so again uh something was weird about my email I did not get it I called Ron this morning and he sent me all the information um I would also suggest that if there's any kind of change in or additional uh owners yeah that was in my email as well okay so I I didn't see no you didn't see my email cuz it went directly to them cuz we can't all communicate right so I said ownership structure we can talk about it now because we're all here on an open record I'd like to hear what all the recommendations are you know one of the things that perplexes me is that the board doesn't have Authority for this renewal we don't have Authority for it so anything we decide it's not in the ordinance so it makes sense to do it it doesn't make sense to do the final hearing no I agree with that but I guess I mean the finals are useless the renewal is where every everything is going to come and I also think there should be a uh you know a police report over the year that says just like a liquor license you get a report if there's been complaints against a liquor store or a bar not for the renewal we don't no you kidding me no no if there's an if there's an issue of police reports then the board has the right or the prosecutor has the right to bring charges and then it's heard by the board so we know we don't review police reports okay so may I ask a favor before we tell Maynard what he does can we ask him the question of how the process works so we're not saying misinformation because we are on the record and I don't want to confuse somebody and mayard does a very good job running his Department he knows how the ABC Works he knows how the CCB works and so he should be the expert in saying what the process is my suggestions were the status update of how many PE employees they have hired and where they live how their business is doing in general terms what community engagement have they done thus far have there been any major changes to ownership Andor security plans otherwise I don't really see what else the board would need to ask I mean I think there should be something if uh they're becoming a nuisance in the community well that's but but they're not no one's going to tell you they're a nuisance to the community well that's where police reports come in but a lot of them the police aren't even being called I know of specific instances with one particular shop where the police have not intervened but there is very egregious Behavior happening so I and also I don't knowing I I just don't know that we're going to get that report so it's something we can ask for but unless it's in the ordinance and it comes from the council directing the Police director to do that it's not even it's never going to happen so mayard let me let me ask you I mean we can ask for calls for service but I'm not sure if it's not in the ordinance we would be able to do that no I agree and also calls of service don't mean that they did something wrong I mean people call all the time and say the music's loud and loud to one person is quiet to another soard if I'm a an applicant and U I say I'm not coming for Renewal before this board I I don't have to that was actually going to be my question so what what do you do do you say well I'm not going to send your application to I don't know the the governing body for I'm not going to renew your license my my understanding from my conversation and email with the CRC is for the first year of operation um they're just looking for an update to make sure that resolution of support is still in good standing and the only way they could get that is coming here right the governing body the governing body uh I mean initially they they said they want just a letter that's coming from the mayor's office I requested if you know assuming that the board's going to review these applications could the letter come directly from the board I have not received an answer to that yet so we have to determine if if the state is still looking for something from the municipality to say yes this resolution of support is still in good standing how we're going to address that they're going to want something from the municipality but they may say we're not coming to CCB I'm going to call the mayor or I'm going to appear before the coun so I I discussed this um last week when we were trying to figure out the process in the conversations that I had it would still be the CCB they would come to the CCB we will do the preliminary hearing we will make the recommendation to the council and then ultimately the council would renew based on our recommendation which is really always the way the process was supposed to work we're just a board that makes a recommendation to the governing body so we would make a recommendation to renew in terms of police issues I think if there were any major issue that does get reported to you and to the CRC so no it doesn't get reported to us no okay because we're not handling any of the enforcement it might be to the municipal prosecutor and there's charges brought Municipal charges but no we wouldn't know about it well let's continue the way we're doing and hopefully there aren't any appc ANS that say I'm not showing before the CCB well again this is why the ordinance needs to be amended the ordin that they don't need to come for final approval that's just a waste of everybody's time the renewal is the is the part where we should have the authority to make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing because otherwise they can't get their letter of support from the mun because really if they don't come here and we don't give the council the letter it doesn't go on the council agenda mayard I mean what we're trying to avoid uh for time's sake is requiring a council resolution right so if there's a recommendation from this board just for a letter to be approved it would avoid the this the time frame that's required because if if we're going to go through they're going to come here first and then I have to put them on the agenda for a letter I think it's going to slow down the process which we're trying to avoid so what we're suggesting I from my understanding of the council agenda this would just go on like Communications and it would be right it would be a letter from us and then they would because they vote on that in a block for the most part correct so we would write a letter as the board saying we support whatever applicant so today's letter or the next Council agenda letter will say we make we voted and we recommend we continue supporting Downtown Flower and the Cannabis Place 420 signed by you mayard as the director Ron the attorney and me as the chair CU my biggest thing is I don't want to hold up any of these businesses that are open corre right we should so however we can expedite the process for them I do think they have to come here especially in the first year but until the ordinance is amended they don't technically have to and the CRC May accept the resolution that I did tonight for these two applicants and then okay so we voted on the motion lot of spinning wheels okay so we does anyone else have anything to say about renewals motion to adjourn that's a [ __ ] so basically second okay uh all in favor I I thank you guys have a good night all right