Pound Ridge resident challenges cannabis sales decision

A Pound Ridge resident who claims that government officials violated the state Open Meetings Law by secretly deciding to allow marijuana dispensaries to open in town, has sued to reverse the decision.

John E. Nathan is also asking Westchester Supreme Court to permanently bar the government from holding secret deliberations, in a complaint filed on Aug. 26.

“The claim that the town board engaged in private, secret, off-the-books meetings is 100% false,” Supervisor Kevin C. Hansan stated in reply to a request for comment. “This is a frivolous lawsuit meant to intimidate the town board and is a waste of taxpayer monies to even respond.”

Nathan is a business and intellectual property attorney who has lived in Pound Ridge for 30 years. He described his hometown as a rural area with a few thousand residents and a small business district serviced by a single road with no traffic lights.

The dispute concerns the state’s Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act, a 2021 law that legalized marijuana use by adults but gave local governments the ability to block cannabis dispensaries. Municipalities were given nine months, to the end of 2021, to formally opt out of the law.

The open meetings law requires public bodies to conduct business at open meetings, publicize the meetings and create a written record of the deliberations. Government officials may confer with one another individually, outside of meetings, according to an advisory opinion Nathan cited, but their communications may not result in a collective decision.

Nathan contends that Hansan and other town board members circumvented the open meetings law.

They allegedly collected information from consultants and lawyers and others on whether to opt out; collaborated among themselves; prepared no written record of their deliberations; and, in contrast with eight surrounding towns, held no public hearing before the opt-out deadline.

The officials didn’t just let the opt-out period expire, he claims. They decided to allow cannabis in Pound Ridge, in effect, opting into the new law.

Their silence continued until late 2023, according to Nathan, “when word leaked out about what the town board had done back in 2021.”

Nathan says he looked for evidence of open deliberations on the marijuana issue. He watched 18 hours of videos of every town board meeting during the opt-out period. He reviewed meeting minutes and town newsletters and news coverage. He filed a public records request that produced 847 pages of emails and internal documents.

He says he found one mention of the issue by the town board, at the beginning of the opt-out period, in a one-minute announcement that the town could opt out of the new law.

The public records request produced emails that showed government officials considering the issue, according to the complaint.

For instance, two months before the opt-out deadline Hansan contacted officials from surrounding areas, in an email headed, “RE: Cannabis law Opt in or out.” He wrote, “We didn’t opt out. We are comfortable with the possibility of a dispensary. On-site consumption isn’t even considered a possible viable business for Pound Ridge since we have zero public transportation, no pedestrian foot traffic, and minimal UBERs.”

This past April, the state licensed Purple Plains, and the cannabis store has opened in Pound Ridge.