See Where Your Town Stands With Marijuana Dispensaries and Consumption Sites

by Monsey.info

It’s a highly intoxicating topic.

Marijuana use in New York State is now legal, and the question of whether towns will allow dispensaries or consumption sites are becoming clear, one town at a time.

When the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA) legalized adult-use/recreational marijuana earlier this year, one of its provisions permitted towns, cities, and villages the opportunity to opt-out of the state issuing licenses for marijuana dispensaries and/or on-site consumption lounges within their jurisdiction.

The December 31st deadline is looming for municipalities, and failure to act before this cutoff date automatically enters a municipality into the retail market.

To opt-out, a municipality needs to pass a local law before the end of the year that exerts their authority under MRTA to prohibit said cannabis establishments. These local laws are subject to permissive referendum, meaning that if the residents in a municipality disagree with the decision of their town, city, or village to opt-out, they can gather signatures to trigger a special election to let the voters decide whether to override the opt-out.

The Rockefeller Institute has been monitoring the opt-out decision-making process of towns, villages, and cities across the state for the last few months, reviewing the meeting minutes of local governing boards, newspaper articles, legal notices for public hearings and passage of local laws, submissions of local laws to the Department of State, and reaching out to municipalities directly.

The information in this article comes from their most recently updated list of where each municipality stands.

Here is the list for New York State as it stands now: